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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



By the Same Jluthor 



Christ and Modern Unbelief 

Present-Day Problems of 
Christian Thought 

Gospel in the Christian Year 

Problem of the Pentateuch 

A Soldier's Recollections 



Romanism in the Light 
of History 



By 

Randolph H. McKim, D.C.L. 

Rector of the Church of the Epiphany, Washington, D. C. 



" We have a Dictator before whom we must prostrate ourselves, 
and be silent, and bow our heads, This Dictator is History" 



'H \hi<x xai (jl6vy) gcXy)0g)<; K^aX^ eaxtv 6 Xpiar&s — s. basil. 



G. P. Putnam's Sons 
New York and London 

Gbe Umfcftetbocfcer ipreas 
1914 



\1 



+v 



Copyright, 1914 

BY 

RANDOLPH H. McKIM 



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Ube fmfcfeerbocfcer Qxc s, Iftew KJorfe 

AUG -6 191 If. 

©CI.A376890 



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Go 

THE MEMORY OF 
MY REVERED FRIEND AND TEACHER 

WILLIAM SPARROW 



PREFACE 

THE history and purpose of the following essays 
may be briefly stated: 

When the famous encyclical of Pope Leo XIII. 
on The Reunion of Christendom was republished 
in the American press, it seemed fitting, as well 
as respectful, that Protestants should make some 
acknowledgment of such an appeal. 

Summoned by the kindly voice of the illustrious 
head of the Roman Church to restore unity to 
Christendom by submission to the sovereign 
spiritual authority of the Roman Pontiff, and 
invited to make this submission in the name of 
Holy Scripture, and of the ancient Fathers of the 
Church, I ventured to answer in an Open Letter, 
citing the Holy Father himself to appear at the 
bar of history, and justify the tremendous claim 
which he makes upon our consciences. 

The second essay in this volume is an attempt 
to exhibit, in a brief space, the verdict of history 
(which is neither Roman Catholic nor Anglican) 
upon all the essential points of doctrine and 
jurisdiction contained in the said encyclical of 
Pope Leo XIII. on Christian unity. My letter 
bore date, Feast of the Annunciation, 1897. 

The third essay, on the " Fundamental Prin- 



vi Preface 

ciples of Protestantism," contains the substance 
of three lectures, delivered in the city of New 
York in my parish church, in the year 1879, in 
reply to a lecture delivered in St. Ann's Roman 
Catholic Church, New York, on the Results of 
the Protestant Reformation, by the very Rev. 
Thomas S. Preston, V.G., and subsequently 
published by Robert Coddington, New York. 

The pamphlet to which these lectures is a reply 
may be taken as a fair specimen of the Roman Cath- 
olic argument. The then Pope, though esteemed a 
liberal man, urged against Protestantism, in one of 
his encyclicals, some of the same accusations, and 
Mr. Mallock's articles in the Nineteenth Century, at 
the same period, took up some of the same points. 

The fourth essay is a reprint of certain Open 
Letters, published in the autumn of 1908, which 
were occasioned by a sermon in the Roman 
Catholic Cathedral of Westminster, London, by 
Cardinal Gibbons, claiming for the Roman Catho- 
lic Church in America the honor of being the first 
to establish religious liberty in the New World. 

I have given in an introductory essay some 
account of the enormous losses sustained by the 
Roman Catholic Church in the different countries 
of Europe since the promulgation of the dogma of 
papal infallibility in 1870, and also an estimate of 
the present condition and prospects of that Church 
in the United States. 

R. H. McK. 

April 15, 1914. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I. The Present Outlook for Romanism . 3 

II. Pope Leo XIIFs Encyclical on The Re- 
union of Christendom 

I. The Reunion of Christendom . . .25 
II. Pope Leo XIIFs Encyclical on Christian 

Unity 33 

III. An Open Letter to His Holiness Leo XIII. .• 43 

IV. Was St. Peter the Rock? .... 59 
V. Preliminary Propositions Necessary to the 

Papal Claims ..... 68 

VI. St. Peter and the Power of the Keys . . 74 

VII. The Primacy of St. Peter .... 79 

VIII. The Primacy Anciently Conceded to the 

Bishop of Rome . . . . .81 

IX. The Development of the Papacy . . 97 

X. The Forged Isidorian Decretals . . 99 
XL Irenaeus on the Primacy of the Bishop of 

Rome ....... 102 

XII. St. Cyprian on the Equality of Bishops . 105 

XIII. Witness of the Greek Church to the Inde- 

pendence of National Churches . .112 

XIV. The Church of Rome and Holy Scripture . 115 
XV. Gregory the Great on the Title "Universal 

Bishop" 119 

XVI. The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception. 124 

XVII. The Dogma of Papal Infallibility . . 129 

XVIII. Papal Infallibility an Ignis Fatuus . .137 

XIX. Conclusion 148 

Appendix 150 

vii 



viii Contents 

III. Fundamental Principles of Protes- 

tantism 

I. The Rule of Faith, and Its Interpreter . 163 

II. The Way of Life 184 

III. Society— The Church— The Creed . . 206 

Notes ....... 230 

IV. Religious Liberty and the Maryland 

Toleration Act 245 

Index 273 



The Present Outlook for 
Romanism 



The Present Outlook for Romanism 



TWO considerations have influenced my decision 
to republish the material contained in this 
volume. The first is the fact that in the pro- 
secution of its avowed purpose "to make America 
Catholic, " the Church of Rome is displaying at 
the present time a boldness and aggressiveness 
greater than ever before in her history in our 
country. She is forcing the fighting. Never 
have her claims been so arrogant. Never has she 
so openly set at defiance the public opinion of 
this Protestant land, and never so openly avowed 
those Papal principles which are subversive of 
personal liberty and free government. 

The other fact is that there is an unmistakable 
and widespread awakening among American 
citizens to the peril involved in the growing 
power, especially the political power, of the 
Roman hierarchy. 

As an evidence of this, I may cite the fact that 
my address on "Why We Are Protestants, " 
published in the February number of the Pro- 
testant Magazine, has reached a circulation of over 
eighty thousand copies in less than two months. 

3 



4 Romanism in the Light of History 

These conditions demand a calm and careful 
consideration of the claims of the Church of 
Rome in the light of history — without passion, 
and without exaggeration. And it is because 
I am desirous to make some small contribution 
to this necessary study of this important subject, 
that I am sending out this volume. 

But why, it may be asked, put before the 
public essays on the Roman controversy already 
published, and some of them many years ago. 

The answer is that the problem has not changed 
in any important respect. The principles in- 
volved are the same to-day as fifty years ago. 
The doctrines Rome requires men to accept are 
the same as when I published my lectures in 
vindication of Protestantism in 1879. The attacks 
her controversialists make on the Protestant 
position to-day are on substantially the same 
lines as that delivered against it by Vicar-General 
Preston in December, 1878. And therefore my 
argument in repelling that assault is as valid 
to-day as then. 

The same is true of my answer to the encyclical 
of Pope Leo XIII. on Christian unity in 1896. 
If the argument was effective then, it is no less 
so to-day, and there is a distinct advantage 
in shaping it to meet the plea so skilfully put 
forward by his Holiness in that striking docu- 
ment. 

As to the most recent of these publications, 
Religious Liberty and the Maryland Toleration Act, 



The Present Outlook 5 

it was meant to meet the claim put forth by 
Cardinal Gibbons, that the Catholic colony of 
Maryland was the first home and sanctuary of 
religious liberty in America. I sought to bring 
that claim to the bar of history and to show how 
untenable it is. IThe strange pretense that the 
Roman Church was the mother of religious 
liberty in our country, whereas she has been its 
relentless foe in all others, has been widely ex- 
ploited of late by the Roman Catholic press and 
by the priesthood and hierarchy. And I have 
therefore thought that the historical demonstra- 
tion of the futility of this claim, which I gave in 
1908, would be no less valuable to-day. I have 
added a brief chapter in further confirmation 
of the argument. 

Of my reply to the encyclical of Pope Leo 
XIII., I may say further that the favorable 
opinion expressed of it at the time by many whose 
judgment I value, and the not infrequent demands 
for it since it has been out of print, seem to justify 
the hope that its republication may be helpful 
in the controversy with Rome. That it satis- 
factorily meets the arguments of his Holiness, 
is an opinion I may hold without presumption, 
when it is remembered that the bishops who 
opposed the decree of infallibility, declared in 
the observations which they jointly submitted 
at the Council that its promulgation " would make 
Catholicism indefensible in controversy " — North 
British Review, Oct., 1870, p. 225. 



6 Romanism in the Light of History 

In my first edition I quoted at length from an 
alleged speech of Bishop Strossmayer, not knowing 
that it had been reported that he had repudiated 
it. 

Those extracts I have now placed in an Ap- 
pendix, not as certainly having been uttered by 
the bold and eloquent prelate, but for their in- 
trinsic value. I give below a letter from a revered 
Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church, now 
deceased, on the subject. 1 

It is often said that the Church of Rome has 
become more enlightened in these modern days — 
that she shows a broader and more tolerant 
spirit — that she has risen above the absolutism 
and the superstition of the Middle Ages. 

There could not be a greater mistake. Her 

1 Albany, N. Y., Nov. 27, 1900. 
My dear Dr. McKim: 

I have just read your little book with great interest. It seems 
to me a wonderfully clear and thorough resume* of what I confess 
always seemed to me the most irresistible argument against the 
whole modern Roman position. I am very sorry about the 
Strossmayer matter, because both the letter itself and the source 
from which it came, and the little headings in which you have 
made extracts from it, are very telling, but of course if he re- 
pudiated it, although I am quite sure he only did it under the 
pressure of that iron heel, I do not think it would be wise in any 
future editions to use it except as a footnote. But I should cer- 
tainly say in the footnote that when the first edition was printed 
you had every reason to believe the speech to be authentic, and 
that you are inclined to believe now that the repudiation, if it 
was made, was compulsory rather that voluntary. With many 
thanks for your courtesy in sending me the book, I am, 
Faithfully your brother, 

W. C. DOANE. 



The Present Outlook 7 

claims are just as arrogant — just as tremendous 
in the year 1914 as in 1870 or in 1215. Her an- 
tagonism to modern progress and modern sci- 
ence is just as positive to-day as it was when 
Pius IX. put forth his famous Syllabus in 1864. 
Leo XIII. was deemed the most enlightened of 
modern Popes, and yet in his encyclical on 
"Human Liberty," June 20, 1888, he proscribed 
liberty of thought or of the press, of teaching or 
of religion, and in his encyclical to France, Feb. 
16, 1892, he calls the separation of Church and 
State a false principle. 

The author of the Letters to His Holiness Pope 
Pius X.j writing three or four years ago, deplored 
the fact that the 

" Papacy's attitude to the foundations of civilization 
has been of a hostility so undisguised, a violence so 
bitter, and a contempt so scornful, as to cause havoc 
and consternation within the Church itself, and anx- 
iety and outcry among the governments of free states 
in Europe. 

"So far as the Papacy is concerned, it is following 
to-day the same course of despotism as led to its 
rejection by the most progressive nations of the world, 
and in consequence human liberty should lift its voice 
and free states be on their guard against it." — p. xix. 

In confirmation of this tremendous indictment, 
the writer quotes from an encyclical of Pius X., 
August 25, 1910, in which it is declared that there 
can be no worthy civilization not wholly con- 



8 Romanism in the Light of History 

trolled by the Church; and refers to the papal 
rescript Sacrorum Antistitum, which orders "the 
expulsion of all Catholic teachers who are in any 
degree infected with liberal ideas"; insists upon 
the expulsion from the seminaries of all liberal 
writings, "even if of Catholic authorship"; and 
concludes with imposing on the Roman priests 
throughout the world the famous oath against 
Modernism, in which they are required to swear 
to adhere with all their heart to every declaration 
and condemnation of the Pope's Syllabus, and of 
his encyclical against Modernism. 

The reigning Pope has shown in many ways 
that he is vehemently opposed to liberty of con- 
science, and he has warmly and officially com- 
mended a book which declares that "public heretics 
deserve, not merely to be excommunicated, but 
to be killed"; that the power to kill heretics 
belongs to both the State and the Church; that 
the Church tolerates heretics now because it is 
not prudent to kill them; and finally that the 
Pope has the power to depose secular rulers who 
abandon Catholicism, and to absolve the subjects 
of such rulers from their allegiance. x 

It is an unquestionable fact, in spite of the 
rhetoric of Cardinal Gibbons and Archbishop 
Ireland, that Rome to this day officially and un- 
compromisingly rejects liberty of conscience as 
a principle. Pope Leo XIII. in his encyclical 

*De stabilitate et Progressu Dogmatis. See Letters to His 
Holiness Pope Pius X., pp. xxiii-iv. 



The Present Outlook 9 

on " Human Liberty," June 20, 1888, says: "It is 
in no wise permitted to demand, defend, or grant, 
liberty of thought or of the press, of teaching or 
of religion." Even the Inquisition, which the 
Papal organ, in Rome, in 1855 described as "a 
sublime spectacle of social perfection," is still 
approved. 

The Western Watchman, perhaps the most 
influential Roman Catholic paper in the United 
States, declares that, "it makes no apology for 
the massacre of St. Bartholomew or for the 
Spanish Inquisition"; in fact the Papacy stands 
before the modern world with the millstone of the 
Inquisition still about its neck, "that diabolical 
institution which for five hundred years was the 
terror of Europe, teaching the innocence of con- 
fiscation, the virtue of delation and the godliness 
of murder." Nor has the doctrine of indul- 
gences been abandoned. By order of Pius IX., 
every step of the Scala Santa has an indulgence 
of nine thousand years attached to it! By 
visiting the Servite Church at Florence, you gain, 
by favor of Leo X., an indulgence of a thousand 
years ! 

Meanwhile every effort to reform either the 
doctrine or the morals of the Church is repressed 
with an iron hand. Montalembert, thorough- 
going Catholic though he was, died of a broken 
heart under Pius IX's condemnation. 

Father Tyrrell, that devout and accomplished 
scholar, was suspended and excommunicated, and 



io Romanism in the Light of History 

the priest, who bravely dared to give him Chris- 
tian burial in defiance of the orders of the Pope, 
was promptly suspended from his office. 

"Every earnest spirit that in our time has at- 
tacked consecrated iniquity or ecclesiastical folly has 
been bludgeoned. Look at the men who have 
spoken for peace, religion, and truth against oppres- 
sion . . . high-minded men of God, yet every one of 
them saw his dream dissolve, and died, or will die, 
forlorn, defeated, hopeless.' ' Letters to His Holiness 
Pius X. t pp. 8, 9. 

Nearly forty-four years have elapsed since the 
promulgation of the decree of Papal Infallibility, 
and we are now able to form some estimate 
of the result of the dogma on the fortunes of the 
Church. In general we may say that the predic- 
tions of its opponents in the Council, Bp. Hefele, 
Cardinal Schwarzenburg, Bp. Strossmayer; Dar- 
boy, Abp. of Paris; Conolly, Abp. of Halifax, 
and many others, have been fulfilled. 

Thus, Archbishop Darboy predicted "it would 
work swift ruin on the temporal power" — a 
prophecy very swiftly fulfilled. The document 
jointly agreed to by the minority, already referred 
to, declared it would give governments apparent 
reason to doubt the fidelity of Catholics. This, 
* too, has come to pass, and we see the Church 
disestablished in Italy, in Spain, in Portugal, 
and in France. Indeed, she has been weakened 
and defeated all over Europe, and so she turns to 



The Present Outlook n 

America as her last hope, and is laboring with 
feverish energy "to make America Catholic/ ' 

Let me further recount the views expressed 
at the time of the Vatican Council. Thus Prince 
Hohenlohe said the proposed decree involved all 
those claims which cause collisions between 
Church and State and threaten the liberty and 
security of governments. 

Cardinal Schwarzenberg: "Papal infallibility 
would make the foundations of faith to tremble 
even in devoutest souls.' ' 

The Archbishop of Halifax (Dr. Conolly) de- 
clared the proposal was only fit to be put decor- 
ously underground. 

One bishop declared he would rather die than 
sign the decree. Another, that the Church 
would commit suicide if it adopted it. 

The learned and candid men who opposed it 
predicted that it would put an end to the con- 
version of Protestants; it would drive devout men 
out of the Church; would give new authority to 
the theory of persecution and of the deposing 
power. They said, moreover, that the doctrine 
was unknown in many parts of the Church, and 
was denied by the Fathers, so that neither per- 
petuity nor universality could be pleaded in its 
favor. In short, it was an absurd contradiction 
founded on ignoble deceit. 1 This utterance fully 

1 In confirmation of the above statements I refer to an article 
on "The Vatican Council" from the pen of Lord Acton in the 
North British Review of October, 1870. 



12 Romanism in the Light of History 

justifies the opinion expressed by Mr. Gladstone in 
his well-known pamphlet on the Vatican Decrees 
that the acceptance of this decree is incompatible 
with the loyalty which a citizen owes to the State. 

On the other hand, take note of the character 
of the arguments by which its advocates supported 
the proposal : 

A doctrine must be true if the Church believes 
it, without any warrant from Scripture. Scripture 
may be silent and tradition contradictory, but 
the Church is independent of both. (Petavius.) 

We have not the authority of Scripture for 
Indulgences, but we have the higher authority 
of the Roman Pontiffs. 

The Dogmatic Commission of the Council took 
the ground that : 

"Objections taken from history are not valid when 
contradicted by ecclesiastical decrees/ ' 

Again : 

"Religion cannot submit to the criticism of his- 
torians.' ' 

Consider also for a moment the methods em- 
ployed. 

Books bearing venerable names — Clement, Dio- 
nysius, Isidore — were forged for the purpose of sup- 
plying authority for opinions that lacked the sanction 
of antiquity. 1 

1 Compare the article of Lord Acton already cited. 



The Present Outlook 13 

Bearing in mind the utterances of the able men 
who opposed the dogma, we may truly say that 
the bishops went forth from the Vatican Council 
of 1870, after the promulgation of Papal Infalli- 
bility, with the task of Jason before them — to 
plow their fields with fire-breathing oxen, and 
then to sow them with dragons' teeth! This 
new dogma breathes flame indeed, — but it has 
been an ill instrument for plowing the fields of 
the modern world! And the anathemas of the 
Syllabus of Pius IX., which are associated with it, 
have yielded such a harvest of disaster as might 
have been expected from the sowing of dragons' 
teeth in Christendom. 

What this harvest has been we may judge from 
a brief summary which I now propose to give. 

It appears in the first place, that from the time 
when the Syllabus of Pius IX. was set forth, 1864, 
the Roman Church has been passing through a 
remarkable phase of disintegration, and would 
seem to have lost nearly a third of its dominion. I 

The intelligent classes in all civilized countries 
have to an enormous extent been estranged from 
the Chu,rch. Rationalism and infidelity have 
made fearful havoc, as Pope Pius X. himself 

x<< Contrary to a widespread conviction, there has been no 
progress made by the Roman Church during the nineteenth 
century in any normally educated portion of the English-speaking 
world. . . . The conversions that have been made in the English- 
speaking world redeem only a small fraction of the heavy losses. " 

He estimates those losses in the United States at 14,000,000. 
The Decay of the Church of Rome, p. 194, by Joseph McCabe. 



14 Romanism in the Light of History 

laments, in some of the principal Roman Catholic 
countries — in the natural reaction from the 
attempt of the Church to fetter reason, to stifle 
inquiry, to discourage scientific and historical 
investigation, and to bind the limbs of thought 
by a despotic absolutism. Setting itself in antago- 
nism to freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, 
and freedom of the press, it has made modern 
Democracy its relentless foe, and has stimulated 
the growth of that very Socialism which it so 
bitterly denounces. " Modernism,' ' which might 
have stood for the sane and sober and devout 
application to the doctrines of the Church of a 
reverent and enlightened scholarship, has become 
in large degree the synonym for the repudiation 
of much of the historic deposit of the Faith, by 
minds which, in breaking loose from the swaddling 
bands by which the Church has bound them, have 
swung to the opposite extreme of unrestrained 
liberalism. 

In confirmation of these statements, look for 
a moment at the state of the Church in France. 

In the year 1894, M. Taine made a painstaking 
attempt to estimate the decay of Catholicism in 
France, collecting his statistics as far as possible 
from Roman Catholic sources, and he came, with 
regret, to the conclusion that out of a population of 
36,000,000 there were only between 7,000,000 and 
8,000,000 Catholics left. Or consider the state- 
ment of the Abbe Dessaine (1897), that there has 
been an " incredible loss of faith" in provinces 



The Present Outlook 15 

once noted for their religion, — Brittany for ex- 
ample. Thus, in a Catholic district with 2300 in- 
habitants, only 200 went to church on Sundays. 
He was himself cur6 of an urban parish of 21,000 
souls. Of these less than 1200 went to Mass on 
Sundays. In a parish of 5000 souls not 100 men 
entered the chapel on Sunday. 

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the 
Church appears to have lost 25,000,000 of the 
30,000,000 of her children. 

If we turn to Italy, we find a state of things not 
dissimilar. Careful and authoritative writers tell 
us that "from the confession of Catholics them- 
selves Catholicism has small hold on the educated 
classes." The professional classes and the stu- 
dents are either indifferent or hostile; and the 
middle class is lost to the Church in Italy. 

Infidelity grows apace — witness the Italian 
Freethinkers' Convention held in Rome in 1904, 
in spite of a vehement protest against it issued 
by the Pope, — the Mayor of Rome hailing "the 
noble struggle of the human intellect in which 
they were engaged.' ' It was an emphatic and 
triumphant demonstration against the Vatican; 
and yet ninety-five Italian municipalities sent offi- 
cial representatives, or official letters of adhesion, to 
it. These are some of the tares that have sprung 
up in the fields of the Church from the dragons' 
teeth sown by the Vatican Council of 1870. 

In the other principal countries of Europe a 
similar state of things exists. 



16 Romanism in the Light of History 

But what of the United States? Here at least, 
it is generally believed the Roman Church has 
made amazing progress — has achieved notable 
triujnphs. In the year 1800, her strength was 
estimated at barely 100,000, but in 1890 it had 
grown to 10,000,000, and in 1913 it was variously 
estimated at from 12,000,000 to 14,000,000, or 
even more. 

But it is forgotten that this growth has come 
almost exclusively from immigration from the 
various countries of Europe ; so that every million 
added to the Roman Church in the United States 
represents a million transferred from some other 
branch of the Roman Church, — and does not 
represent any growth at all. 

On the contrary, this transference results really 
in enormous loss. This is established beyond con- 
tradiction by reliable Roman Catholic authorities. 
Thus Bishop England, of the diocese embracing 
South Carolina and Georgia, reported officially in 
1836 that out of 50,000 people of Catholic origin, 
only 10,000 were faithful; and he estimates the 
loss to the Church in fifty years as 3,750,000. A 
memorial addressed to the Pope by some of the 
faithful in 1891 affirms that there were 20,000,000 
descendants of Catholic emigrants to the United 
States, and that of these 16,000,000 had aposta- 
tized. A Roman prelate, writing to the Freeman's 
Journal, 3d December, 1898, said that "the num- 
ber of Catholics in the United States ought to be 
double what it is to-day/ ' 



The Present Outlook 17 

The same journal claimed that there were 40,- 
000,000 people of Catholic extraction in the United 
States, and that 20,000,000 of these had gone over 
to Protestantism. 

An Irish priest, describing his American experi- 
ence in The Irish Ecclesiastical Record (Feb., May 
and July, 1902) says there should be a total Catho- 
lic population in the United States of 20,000,000; 
— he found it less than 10,000,000. American pre- 
lates had begged him to arrest the tide of emigra- 
tion from Ireland. "For your people, " said one 
of them, "America is the road to hell. ,, 

Careful statistics justify the conclusion that the 
Roman Catholic Church ought to-day to number 
in our country more than 23,000,000, without 
counting a single convert. * 

In further confirmation of the above state- 
ments, consider the following admission by Father 
Phelan, of the Western Watchman, in a sermon 
found in that journal, Sept. 25, 1913: 

" Now we boast our wondrous progress in this coun- 
try. We are building new churches and establishing 
new dioceses, and we think we are doing wonders. 
We are doing less than in any other country in the 
world. I tell you because I know whereof I speak. 
We are making no real lasting progress here. We are 
receiving the best that the Catholic nations of the 
world can send us, and immigration is making us 
strong ; but we are losing hold of the men . . . The 
men don't go to Mass." 

1 See L'AtnSricanisme, by Canon Delassus, pp. 354-356. 



18 Romanism in the Light of History 

The Roman Catholic Church, then, when we 
take a broad survey of its condition, is seen to be 
losing ground over wide areas, and especially in 
the centres of greatest enlightenment. It is not 
gaining, it is losing strength. It is not really 
consolidating its resources, it is disintegrating. 
Father McCabe's conclusion appears to rest on a 
solid basis. 

When we note the extraordinary impotence of 
Catholicism in the great cities of Europe; when we 
learn in country after country, that the middle class 
forsook it a generation ago, and the artisans are 
abandoning it to-day, when we find its authority 
rejected almost in proportion as a nation is touched 
with culture ; and when we see that its larger tracts of 
unchallenged authority so constantly correspond with 
the darker areas in the cultural map of the world — we 
see that its power rests largely on a basis that is 
directly and triumphantly challenged by the modern 
spirit — a basis of ignorance. 1 

Another conclusion we confidently draw for our- 
selves is this : that as long as that Church is domi- 
nated by the mediaeval spirit, as long as it clings 
to its effete superstitions, as long as it hugs con- 
tentedly the fetters of absolutism welded by the 
Vatican, it can never become the Church of the 
American people. The enterprise of " making 
America Catholic" is foredoomed to failure. 

1 The Decay of the Church of Rome, by Joseph McCabe, p. 305-6. 
Methuen & Co. 



The Present Outlook 19 

Nevertheless we are confronted by a real danger 
by reason of the presence of the Roman Church 
in our midst, under its now prevailing auspices. 
That danger arises from the ambition of the hier- 
archy to grasp political power in the United States. 
It is not necessary to prove that this ambition 
exists among those who are shaping its destinies 
in the Republic. Whoever has observed their 
policy at all critically cannot fail to see it. So 
confident are they of their political power that the 
Western Watchman boastfully says that any public 
man who opposes the Roman Church commits 
political suicide. This boast is also a confession — 
a confession that the Church controls the ballots 
cast by her partisans — controls them sufficiently 
to defeat those who incur her displeasure. That 
which makes her dangerous — that which gives 
her so often a controlling political influence is 
not her numbers, but her solidarity — the sub- 
serviency of a large proportion of her adherents 
to the direction of the priesthood. It is this 
mediaeval sacerdotalism that constitutes our peril. 
The Roman priest controls the political action 
of a large part of his flock. The Protestant 
minister neither wields, nor seeks to wield, such 
control. And so it comes to pass that the Roman 
minority often triumphs over the Protestant 
majority. 

In conclusion I venture to quote a passage 
from a recent address of my own. After enu- 
merating some of the manifold ways in which 



20 Romanism in the Light of History 

some of the representatives of the Church of 
Rome are abridging the liberties of our people by 
the ballot, by the boycott, by interference with 
our public libraries, by warring against our public 
schools, by putting the Bible on the Index, by 
mobbing Protestant lecturers, I go on to say: 

" In view of this catalogue of things that are going on 
among us, I ask, Is it not a fact that our liberties are 
abridged, that an ecclesiastical tyranny does already 
in fact exist in our midst? 

What then? — Why, this: the great Protestant 
communions must realize the seriousness of the crisis 
that is upon us. They must make common cause 
against this insidious menace to our Constitution and 
to our liberties. They must come out into the open 
and stand together in solid phalanx against all these 
invasions of personal liberty; not in anger, not in 
bitterness, not with violence of speech or violence of 
action, but calmly, resolutely, with invincible deter- 
mination that the principles of our Constitution shall 
be preserved inviolate, and that our citizens shall 
enjoy absolute liberty of speech and action, shall be 
free to act, to vote, and to carry on their worldly affairs 
without any interference, directly or indirectly, from 
the priesthood. 

11 My friends and brethren, this unity, this Protestant 
unity of action that I have alluded to, is coming. I 
hear the sound of its advancing footsteps. I hear afar 
off the tramp, as of a mighty army marching to the 
Battle Hymn of the Republic. It is an army of peace. 
Its weapons are not carnal, but spiritual. By the 
force of reason, by the power of an enlightened public 



The Present Outlook 21 

opinion, it will win its victories. Its voice will be the 
voice of the many millions of Protestant citizens, the 
great majority of our people, and it will command 
respect, it will constrain to obedience. And this will 
be the tenor of its speech to our Roman Catholic 
fellow citizens: 

11 ' In the name of the great Republic we charge you, 
Remember that you, as well as we, owe obedience to 
the laws and the Constitution of this land, not in 
letter only, but in spirit. Remember that only by 
moral and spiritual force ought you (or any other 
religionists) to seek to propagate your religion. Be 
content with the liberty to profess and practice and 
propagate your religion, without meddling in politics, 
without attempting to coerce or intimidate free Ameri- 
can citizens, without using the boycott or the blud- 
geon, to accomplish your ends; in short, to propagate 
your religion wholly by rational and spiritual means. 

"In other words, be content to be a spiritual and 
not a politico-religious organization ; and beware that 
you make no attempt, direct or indirect, to tamper 
with the sacred principles of our Constitution. Then 
there will be peace between us, and we can live and 
labor together for the honor and the glory of our 
common country.' " 



Pope Leo XI IPs Encyclical 

on the Reunion of 

Christendom 



23 



Pope Leo XIII's Encyclical on the 
Reunion of Christendom 



THE REUNION OF CHRISTENDOM 

THE reunion of Christendom is a consummation 
devoutly to be wished and prayed for, and for 
which Christian men and Christian churches ought 
to be prepared to make great concessions — to 
sacrifice everything but truth itself. But, as the 
Bishop of Edinburgh says in a recent charge to the 
Synod of Edinburgh (1895), it ought to be con- 
sidered that "unity in external communion with- 
out unity in fundamental truth would be, even if 
it could be obtained, a curse and not a blessing." 
Any proposition, therefore, looking to the reunion 
of the Anglican Church with the Church of Rome, 
as preparatory to the further and larger step of a 
complete reunion of Christendom, must deal first 
with the problem of unity in fundamental truth 
between these two great communions. And 
when their respective doctrinal positions are 
examined it becomes at once apparent that they 
are so fundamentally at variance that without 

25 



26 Romanism in the Light of History 

radical and far-reaching change on one side or the 
other reunion is impossible. 

I invite attention to the language of the learned 
prelate just referred to upon this subject : 

" Day by day [he says] we offer up the supplication 
. . . 'that all who profess and call themselves 
Christians may be led into the way of truth 9 — that 
first, and then, possessing the truth, "may hold the 
faith in Unity of Spirit, in the bond of peace, and in 
righteousness of life/ What has been forgotten, or 
at least in practice minimized, on the side of those 
Anglicans to whom I have referred, is the paramount 
claim of truth. What the Church of Rome holds to 
be truth, she never for one moment will compromise 
or explain away. As each new dogma has been added 
to her creed, it secures a place co-ordinate in certainty 
and authority for her own children with the doctrines 
that seem to us most clearly revealed in Holy Scrip- 
ture. She teaches no doctrine that might be recalled, 
revised, modified, or explained away. For the pur- 
poses of diplomatic negotiations with other religious 
communities, she suffers from the very considerable 
inconvenience of infallibility. If two parties differ, 
and one is, ex hypothesi, always right on the funda- 
mental points in dispute, it is plain that there can be 
but one issue to any successful effort at making up the 
difference. Union with Rome means simply accept- 
ance of her creed and submission to her authority. 
What some of us venture to call her "errors, " are 
with her immutable and irreformable expressions of 
Divine truth, having all the authority of God Him- 
self. It comes then simply to this : Can we surrender 



Encyclical of Leo XIII 27 

the principles for which the Anglican Church has 
steadily contended for the last three hundred and 
fifty years? Or can we hold the doctrines of our 
Church, and, with a due regard for the ordinary and 
natural rules by which historical documents are in- 
terpreted, can we reconcile the sense of our historical 
and authoritative standards of doctrine with the 
authoritative doctrine of the Church of Rome? The 
only answer to each question is, — 77 is impossible" 

There could not be a better illustration of the 
truth of these remarks of Dr. Dowden than is 
found in the Encyclical of Leo XIII. on Christian 
Unity, issued in the early summer of 1896, to 
which the following " Letter' ' was a reply. This 
Pontiff has been widely extolled (and no doubt 
justly) for his enlightened liberality, and for the 
breadth of his sympathies, as well as for his 
sanctity. Yet when he undertakes to discuss 
Christian unity, he holds a tone as uncompro- 
mising, as unbending, as absolute as Hildebrand 
himself. Underneath all his gracious and paternal 
phrases, there lurks unabated the imperial temper 
of the Popes of the Middle Ages. He offers not a 
single concession. He makes not a single advance. 
He abates not a jot or tittle of the claims of his 
predecessors. He has one short and simple 
solution of the problem presented by Christian 
unity, — Let the whole Christian world — all 
churches, communions, sects, make their sub- 
mission to the Roman Pontiff. Only an absolute 
surrender to Rome can heal the divisions of 



28 Romanism in the Light of History 

Christendom. Two things, the Encyclical declares 
are indispensably necessary. First, we must 
accept every article of faith, and point of doctrine, 
which has been authoritatively proclaimed and 
established by the Roman Church; and, second, 
we must accept the jurisdiction, the supremacy, 
the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff. 

Let us ask, then, What does the Roman Church 
require us to believe? It would lead us too far 
to reply to this question exhaustively. It will be 
enough to note that besides the three Creeds ac- 
cepted by the Church of England, she requires 
us to accept (i) the Creed of Pius IV. set forth 
A.D. 1564; (2) the definitions of the (Ecumenical 
Councils; (3) all ex cathedra doctrinal definitions 
of the Popes in all the ages, e.g., the doctrine of the 
Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin 
promulgated in the year 1854 by Pius IX. Now 
let us suppose that we could accept all the doctrines 
and articles of faith pertaining to the Christian 
religion, just enumerated, it would avail us noth- 
ing unless we also submitted to the jurisdiction 
and supremacy of the Bishop of Rome. x ' ' Schism* ' 
from the Pope, Leo tells us, places us " outside 
the One Fold." " Bishops are deprived of the 
right and power of ruling if they deliberately 
secede from Peter and his successors." "The 



1 " The very nature of divine faith makes it impossible that we 
can reject even one point of direct teaching (by the authoritative 
magisterium of the Church), as this is practically rejecting the 
authority of God Himself. " — Encyclical on Christian Unity. 



Encyclical of Leo XIII 29 

Episcopate order is rightly judged to be in com- 
munion with Peter, as Christ commanded, if it 
is subject to and obeys Peter; otherwise it neces- 
sarily becomes a lawless and disorderly crowd/ ' 
It is not enough that the head of the Church 
11 should have been charged merely with the 
office of superintendent, or should have been 
invested solely with the power of direction, but 
it is absolutely necessary that he should have re- 
ceived real and sovereign authority which the whole 
community is bound to obey"* I italicize these 
last words in order to call attention to the distinct 
assertion which they make that absolute power 
is vested in the Pope. Innocent III. himself 
could not have more distinctly formulated the 
theory of an absolute ecclesiastical despotism 
lodged in the hands of the Roman Pontiffs. Pope 
Boniface VIII. asserted no more when he declared 
officially (in his Bull Unam Sanctam), "We 
declare, assert, and define, that for every human 
creature it is altogether necessary to salvation 
that he be subject to the Roman Pontiff." 2 Did 
Pope Gregory VII. do more than draw out a 
corollary from the same fundamental proposi- 
tion when he affirmed that "when men proudly re- 

2 The Encyclical. 

3 The French novelist who has lately given the .world a truly 
remarkable picture of modern Rome was justified, it would 
appear, in putting the following words into the mouth of Pope Leo 
XIII : " Ah! le Schisme, ah! le Schisme, mon fils, c'est le crime sans 
pardon, c'est l'assassinat du vrai Dieu, la b£te de tentation im- 
monde, suscit£e par l'Enfer, pour la perte des fideles. " 



30 Romanism in the Light of History- 
fuse to obey the Apostolic Chair (of Peter) they 
incur the guilt of idolatry," ("cum enim obe- 
dire apostolicae sedi superbe contemnunt, scelus 
idolatriae . . . incurrunt")? And did not Bell- 
armine build on the same foundation when he 
made the amazing and blasphemous assertion 
that "if the Pope should err by enjoining vices 
and prohibiting virtues, the Church would be 
bound to believe vices to be good, and virtues to 
be bad, unless she would sin against conscience"? 1 

In making these strictures upon the real purport 
of the Encyclical, we do not wish or intend to 
impeach the sincerity of the venerable Pontiff, 
or to question or doubt his genuine zeal for the 
reunion of Christendom. Rather would we draw 
attention to the inexorable logic of the iron system 
which the Papacy incarnates. The gentleness 
and charity and sympathy and zeal of Leo XIII. 
only serve as a foil to the sharp two-edged sword 
which as Pope he is compelled to wield. The 
man, good and kind and liberal-minded as he is, 
is helplessly in the grip of the absolutism of which 
he is the official representative. 

Here, however, is the feature of the Encyclical 
which deserves especial note, and which called 
forth the Letter of reply which follows. His 
Holiness undertakes to reason with "the peoples 
of the Christian world," and to set before them 

1 " Si autem Papa erraret praecipiendo vitia, vel prohibendo 
virtutes, teneretur Ecclesia credere vitia esse bona, et virtutes 
malas, nisi vellet contra conscientiam peccare." 



Encyclical of Leo XIII 31 

somewhat at length the grounds in Scripture and 
the ancient Fathers upon which the proud edifice 
of Roman ecclesiastical imperialism professes to 
rear itself. Thus the document refers the great 
matters at issue to the arbitrament of Holy 
Scripture and primitive antiquity, and, in effect, 
invites all who dissent from Rome to exercise 
their private judgment in seeking a true conclu- 
sion. The present writer felt that the Encyclical 
thus constituted a challenge, which could not 
properly be declined, to meet the illustrious 
apologist of the Papal system upon ground which 
we as Anglicans have ever claimed as our own. 

The following publication has for its object the 
justification of the assertions made in my open 
Letter of Reply to Pope Leo XIII., published in 
the Washington Post of July 27, 1896, especially 
by giving the passages from the Fathers alluded 
to therein. 

I have quoted freely from the Encyclical of 
the "Holy Catholic and Apostolical Orthodox 
Church of the East " in reply to a previous encycli- 
cal of Pope Leo XIII. on reunion, of November 
30, 1894, * n order to draw attention to the import- 
ant and impressive fact that on all the great 
questions at issue between the Anglican Com- 
munion and the Church of Rome, the Greek 
Church, with its one hundred millions of adherents, 
stands with us. As to Purgatory, the Immaculate 
Conception, Mariolatry, Denial of the Cup to 
the Laity, the Primacy of Peter, the ancient 



32 Romanism in the Light of History 

Primacy of the Bishop of Rome, the claims of 
Papal Authority, of Temporal Power, of Infalli- 
bility, she agrees with us. She interprets the 
Fathers, and the decrees and canons of the ancient 
Councils just as we do, upon all these points. 
She finds the Roman system made up of innova- 
tions, — modern, not ancient ; provincial, not catho- 
lic, — built not upon the Holy Scriptures, not 
upon the ancient Fathers, not upon the ancient 
Councils, but upon perversions and usurpations, 
upon spurious Patristic passages, upon the false 
Clementines, upon the forged Decretals of Isidore, 
upon the unauthentic Apostolical Constitutions. 
This is her language : 

"The orthodox Church of Christ is ever ready to 
receive every proposal of reunion, if only the Bishop 
of Rome shakes off, once and for all time, the many 
and divers innovations which, contrary to the Gospel, 
have been stealthily introduced into the Church, and 
have caused the grievous division of the churches of 
the East and the West ; and if only he returns to the 
ground of the seven GEcumenical Councils, which were 
held under the guidance of the Holy Spirit by the 
representatives of all the Churches of God, in order to 
define the right teaching of faith, as against those that 
tended to heresy/ ' 



II 

POPE LEO'S ENCYCLICAL ON CHRISTIAN UNITY 

ON the 29th of June, 1896, the following report 
of the Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII. was 
given to the press: 

Cardinal Gibbons has received from Rome advance 
sheets of Pope Leo XIII's Encyclical on the union of 
the Christian churches. It is addressed to all Bishops 
in communion with the Holy See, and is in part as 
follows : 

"The Holy Father, intent upon the work of bring- 
ing all to the one fold of Christ, considers that it 
would conduce to the end were he to set before the 
peoples of the Christian world the ideal and exemplar 
of the church as divinely constituted, to which church 
all are bound by God's command to belong. 

"In accordance with His usual providence, God 
makes use of human instruments to effect the sancti- 
fication and salvation of men. To this end not only 
did He take upon Himself human nature, but in order to 
perpetuate His mission, the Son of God chose apostles 
and disciples, whom He had trained, that they might 
faithfully hand down His teaching and commands to 
those who desired the blessing He had purchased for 
mankind by His death. 

33 



34 Romanism in the Light of History 

"In commanding the apostles and their successors 
to the end of time to teach and rule the nations He 
ordered the nations to accept and obey their authority. 

"In Scripture, the church is called a body, and the 
body of Christ. It is visible as being a living and 
organized society, and is animated by the invisible 
vital principle of supernatural life. Those, therefore, 
who either deny that Christ's church is a visible body 
or refuse to allow that it has ' the perennial communica- 
tion of the gifts of divine grace, are equally in a 
grievous and pernicious error/ The 'connection and 
union of both elements is absolutely necessary to the 
true church as the intimate union of the soul and body 
is to human nature/ and as this is the essential 
constitution of the church according to God's will, 
who also determined that it was to last to the end of 
time, this it must possess at the present day." 

The Mission of Christ. 

"It is obviously of the first importance to deter- 
mine what Christ wished His church to be, and what 
in fact He made it. According to this criterion, it is 
the unity of the Christian church which must neces- 
sarily be considered, for it is certain that when 'He 
founded it He wished it to be one/ The mission of 
Christ was to save not some nations or peoples only, 
but the whole human race, without distinction of 
time or place. Hence, as the mission of His church 
was to hand down through every age the blessing of 
this salvation b}^ the will of its founder, it is necessary 
that this church should be one in all lands and at all 
times. 

"A church which should embrace all men every- 



Encyclical of Leo XIII 35 

where and at all times was clearly foretold by the 
prophet Isaiah, and was typified as our Lord's mystical 
body- — a body united to Himself as head; a mystical 
body, the members of which, if separated one from the 
other, 'cannot be united with one and the same 
head/ And so another head like to Christ — that is, 
another Christ — must be invented if besides the one 
church, which is His body, men wish to set up another. 
" Furthermore, 'He who made this one church also 
gave it unity — that is, He made it such that all who 
so belong to it must be united by the closest bonds, so 
as to form one society, one kingdom, one body/ 
And He willed that this unity among His followers 
should be so perfect 'that it might in some measure 
shadow forth the union between Himself and His 
father/ " 

Unity of Faith Essential. 

"As a necessary consequence 'in His divine wisdom 
He ordained in His church unity of faith — a virtue 
which is the first of those bonds which unite man to 
God and whence we receive the name of the faithful/ 
The nature of this unity of faith must and can be 
ascertained from the commands and teaching of 
Christ Himself. The mere possession of the Scriptures 
is not sufficient to insure unity of belief, 'not merely 
because of the nature of the doctrine itself and the 
mysteries it involves, but also because of the divergent 
tendencies of the human mind and the disturbing 
element of conflicting passions/ 

"It was necessary 'that there should be another 
principle ' to insure union of minds in the Christian 
Church, and it is consequently proper to inquire 



36 Romanism in the Light of History 

which of the many means by which Christ, our Lord, 
could have secured this unity, He, in fact, adopted. 
It is the duty of all followers of Christ, not merely to 
accept His doctrine generally, 'but to assent with their 
entire mind to all and every point of it, since it is 
unlawful to withhold faith from God even in regard 
to one single point. ' 

" Christ endowed His apostles with authority like 
to His own, and promised that the spirit of truth 
should direct them and remain with them forever, and 
because of this commission it is no more allowable 
to repudiate one iota of the apostles' teaching than to 
reject any point of the doctrine of Christ Himself. 
This apostolic mission was intended for the salvation 
of the whole human race, and consequently must 
last to the end of time." 

Authority of the Church. 

"The magisterium instituted by Christ in His 
church was by God's will perpetuated in the successors 
appointed by the apostles, and in like manner the 
duty of accepting and professing all that is thus taught 
is also perpetual and immutable. There is nothing 
which the church founded on these principles has been 
more careful to guard than the integrity of the faith. 
The fathers of the church are unanimous in consider- 
ing as outside the Catholic communion any one who 
in the least degree deviates from even one point of the 
doctrine proposed by the authoritative magisterium 
of the church. 

" Wherefore Christ instituted in the church a living, 
authoritative, and lasting magisterium. He willed 
and commanded under the gravest penalties that its 



Encyclical of Leo XIII 37 

teachings should be received as if they were His own. 
As often, therefore, as it is declared on the authority of 
this teaching that this or that is contained in the 
deposit of divine revelation, it must be believed by 
every one as true. The very nature of divine faith 
makes it impossible that we can reject even one point 
of direct teaching, as this is practically rejecting the 
authority of God Himself. 

" Christ commanded 'all men present and future 
to follow Him as their leader and Saviour, and this 
not merely as individuals, but as forming a society, 
organized and united in mind. He established in the 
church all those principles which necessarily tend to 
make organized human societies and through which 
they attain the perfection proper to each/ That is, 
in the church founded by Christ, 'all who wished to be 
the sons of God by adoption might attain to the per- 
fection demanded by their high calling and might 
obtain salvation/ 

"The church is 'man's guide to whatever pertains 
to heaven. This is the office appointed to it by God 
that it may watch over and may order all that con- 
cerns religion, and may without let or hindrance 
exercise, according to its judgment, its charge over 
Christianity. Wherefore they who pretend that the 
church has any wish to interfere in civil matters, or to 
infringe upon the rights of the State, either know it 
not or wickedly calumniate it/ " 

Christ's Vicegerent on Earth. 

"Besides being the guardian of the faith, the church 
must afford the means of obtaining the salvation 
purchased by Christ. The dispensation of the divine 



38 Romanism in the Light of History 

ministries was not granted by God indiscriminately to 
all Christians, but to the apostles and their successors, 
and in this way, according to God's providence, a duly 
constituted society 'was formed out of the divided 
multitudes of people, one in faith, one in end, one in 
the participation of the means adapted to the attain- 
ment of the end, and one as subject to one and the 
same authority/ 

"As 'no true and perfect human society can be 
conceived which is not governed by some supreme 
authority/ so Christ, of necessity, gave to His church a 
supreme authority to which all Christians must be 
obedient. For the preservation of unity, there must 
be unity of governments^ divino, and men may be 
placed outside the one fold by schism as well as by 
heresy. 

"The nature of this supreme authority can be 
ascertained from the positive and evident will 
of Christ in the matter. As He willed that His 
kingdom should be visible, Christ was obliged to 
designate a vicegerent on earth in the person 
of St. Peter. He also determined that the auth- 
ority given him for the salvation of mankind 
in perpetuity should be inherited by St. Peter's 
successors. 

"It cannot be doubted from the words of Holy 
Writ that the church, by the will of God, rests on St. 
Peter, as a building on its foundation. St. Peter 
could not fulfill this duty without the power of 
commanding, forbidding, judging, which is properly 
called ' jurisdiction.' It is by the power of jurisdiction 
that nations and commonwealths are held together — a 
primacy of honor, and the shadowy right of giving 
advice and admonition, which is called direction, 



Encyclical of Leo XIII 39 

could never give unity or strength to any society of 
men." 

St. Peter's Power Supreme. 

"The metaphorical expressions of the 'keys' and of 
'binding and loosing' indicate 'the power of making 
laws, of judging and of punishing — a power which our 
Lord declares to be of such amplitude and force that 
God would ratify whatever is decreed by it.' Thus 
the power of St. Peter is supreme, and absolutely 
independent, so that having no other power upon 
earth as its superior it embraces the whole church and 
all things committed to the church. 

"As this governing authority belongs to the con- 
stitution and formation of the church as the very 
principle of unity and stability, it was clearly intended 
to pass to St. Peter's successors from one to another. 
Consequently, the pontiffs who succeed him in the 
Roman episcopate receive the supreme power in the 
church jure divino, and this is declared fully by general 
councils, and is acknowledged by the consent of 
antiquity. 

"But though the authority of St. Peter and his 
successors is plenary and supreme, it is not to be 
regarded as the only authority. 

"The Bishops, who are the successors of the apostles, 
inherit their ordinary power, and the 'Episcopal order 
necessarily belongs to the essential constitution of the 
church.' They are consequently not to be regarded 
as mere vicars of the Roman pontiffs, since 'they 
exercise a power which is really their own, and are 
most truly called the ordinary pastors of the people 
over whom they rule//' 



40 Romanism in the Light of History 

Episcopal Rights Lost by Secession. 

"For the preservation of unity in the Christian 
church, it is above all things necessary that there 
should be union between the Roman pontiff, the one 
successor to St. Peter, and the Bishops, the many 
successors of the apostolic college. 'It is necessary 
to bear in mind that no prerogative was confessed in 
the apostles in which St. Peter did not participate, 
but that many were bestowed upon St. Peter apart 
from the apostles.' He alone was designated by 
Christ as the foundation of His church. To him He 
gave the power of forgiving and retaining, and to him 
alone was given the authority to feed. From this it 
follows 'that Bishops are deprived of the right and 
power of ruling if they deliberately secede from Peter 
and his successors, because by this secession they are 
separated from the foundation on which the whole 
edifice rested.' 

"As the divine founder of the church decreed that 
His church should be one in faith, in government, and 
communion, so He chose Peter and his successors as 
the principal, and, as it were, the center of this unity. 

"The episcopate order is rightly judged to be in 
communion with Peter, as Christ commanded, if it is 
subject to and obeys Peter; otherwise it necessarily 
becomes a lawless and disorderly crowd. For the 
due preservation of unity of the faith, it is not suf- 
ficient ' that the head should have been charged merely 
with the office of superintendent or should have been 
invested solely with the power of direction, but it is 
absolutely necessary that he should have received real 
and sovereign authority which the whole community 
is bound to obey/ " 



Encyclical of Leo XIII 41 

Authority of Bishops Limited. 

"It is opposed to the truth, and is in evident con- 
tradiction with the divine constitution of the church 
to hold that while a Bishop is individually bound to 
obey the authority of the Roman pontiffs, the Bishops, 
taken collectively, are not so bound. For it is the 
nature and essence of a foundation to support the 
unity of the whole edifice and to give stability to it 
rather than that of each component part. It was 
through the strength and solidity of the foundation 
that Christ promised that the gates of hell should not 
prevail against His church — a promise to be under- 
stood of the church as a whole, and not of any certain 
portions of it. 

" Moreover, he who is set over the whole flock must 
have authority not only over the sheep dispersed 
throughout the church, but also when they are as- 
sembled together. Do all the sheep gathered together 
rule and guide the shepherd? Do the successors of the 
apostles assembled together constitute the foundation 
on which the successor of St. Peter rests in order to 
derive therefrom strength and stability? 

"The Popes have ever unquestionably exercised 
the office of ratifying or rejecting the decrees of coun- 
cils. Leo the Great rescinded the acts of Concilia- 
bulum of Ephesus. Damasus rejected those of 
Rimini, and Adrian I. those of Constantinople. The 
twenty-eighth canon of the council of Chalcedon, by 
the very fact that it lacks the assent and approval of 
the apostolic see, is admitted by all to be worthless. 

"Holy writ attests that the keys of the kingdom of 
heaven were given to Peter alone, and that the promise 
of binding and loosing was granted to the apostles and 



42 Romanism in the Light of History 

to Peter, but there is nothing to show that the apostles 
received supreme power without Peter or against Peter. 
Such power they certainly did not receive from Jesus 
Christ. Wherefore, in the decree of the Vatican coun- 
cil as to the nature and authority of the primacy of 
the Roman pontiff, no newly conceived opinion is set 
forth, but the venerable and constant belief of all 
ages." 



Ill 

AN OPEN LETTER TO HIS HOLINESS LEO XIII. 

To His Holiness Pope Leo XIII: 

Revered Pontiff: 

Inasmuch as your recent encyclical on Christian 
unity, although formally addressed only "to the 
Bishops in communion with the Holy See," does, 
in fact, make argument and appeal "to the peoples 
of the Christian world, " it will not, I trust, appear 
improper or presumptuous if I, being only an 
humble and obscure priest in the Church of God, 
venture to lay before your Holiness some of the 
difficulties which are widely felt in acceding to 
the proposal and plan you have been pleased to 
set forth in order to effectuate Christian unity. 

The fact that I am of the Anglican communion, 
and therefore a Protestant, makes, it not less, but 
more, becoming that I should make respectful 
reply, since it is especially on behalf of the Pro- 
testant peoples that your Holiness has been at the 
pains to prepare this encyclical with a view to 
"bringing all to the one fold of Christ." It would, 
indeed, appear churlish and discourteous if, when 
one occupying so exalted a station as the Pontiff 
of the most numerous church on earth had con- 

43 



44 Romanism in the Light of History 

descended to reason with the great communions 
of Christians who are not of his flock upon so 
momentous a theme as Christian u;nity, there 
should be no reason publicly given for not embra- 
cing his overtures. Such explanation is due to the 
gracious act of the illustrious Pontiff — still more 
due to ourselves and to the public in the face of a 
proposition of such grave importance. 

Before attempting to state the difficulties which 
unhappily appear to inexorably forbid the cordial 
acceptance of the plan which your holiness pro- 
poses in order to heal the wounds in the body of 
Christ — if I may be allowed to speak as if we, too, 
did actually belong to His body — let me express my 
profound and unfeigned thanks that the momen- 
tous issues involved in this great contention are 
by your holiness referred to the arbitrament of 
reason. In reasoning with us you invite us to ex- 
ercise our reason. In outlining for our considera- 
tion the grounds upon which the enormous claims 
of the Roman See are based, you invite us to weigh 
the evidence, to scrutinize the authorities cited ; in 
short, to exercise our private judgment upon the 
tremendous issue whether or not the Roman 
Church is the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic 
Church, and whether in that Church the supreme 
power is lodged in the Pontiff. For this recogni- 
tion of the function of reason and the right and 
duty of private judgment we, as Protestants, are 
profoundly grateful. We understand, of course, 
that you confine the exercise of this right to the 



Encyclical of Leo XIII 45 

scrutiny of the credentials of the Roman Church 
and of the authority and infallibility of her Pontiff; 
and that once convinced that she is the one, holy, 
catholic, and apostolic Church, and that her Pontiffs 
are supreme and infallible, then the exercise of 
reason and private judgment is, in your view, at 
an end, and we must accept, without question or 
doubt, whatever is defined or decided by the Holy 
See. Or, to state it in the clear and unambiguous 
language of the encyclical, "as often as it is de- 
clared, on the authority of this teaching, that this 
or that is contained in the deposit of the divine 
revelation, it must be believed by every one as 
true." This, I repeat, we clearly understand, but 
we gratefully recognize the liberty which you 
concede us to submit the credentials of the Church 
and of the Pontiff to the bar of reason, untram- 
meled by authority, and summoning Scripture and 
history as witnesses in determining the issue. 

But let me proceed, without further preface, to 
state some of the difficulties we find in the way of 
accepting the proposals of the encyclical. 

I. The first concerns "the integrity of the 
faith," which your holiness urges upon our con- 
sideration as a matter of vital importance. Our 
difficulty is that "the faith" as presented for our 
acceptance by the Roman Church, is in various 
points different from, and contradictory to, "the 
faith" as contained in the Holy Scriptures and 
professed by the ancient fathers of the Catholic 
Church. Yet the encyclical assures us that "the 



46 Romanism in the Light of History 

apostles and disciples" were commissioned by 
Christ to " faithfully hand down His teaching, " 
and invites us to test the claims of the Church 
and its doctrines by the Scriptures and the ancient 
fathers. We are thus placed in a dilemma. We 
must either repudiate these doctrines of the faith 
of the Roman Church, as contrary to the Scripture 
and the ancient fathers of the Church, or in accept- 
ing the former we must repudiate the latter, and 
in so doing set ourselves against the decree of the 
Holy Council of Trent, which declared the Scrip- 
tures to be the inspired and infallible Word of God. 
In illustration of my meaning I will mention but 
one out of many doctrines that are open to the 
difficulty just alleged. The doctrine of the 
Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, 
which was proclaimed by your revered predecessor, 
Pius IX., in the year 1854, an d has since been an 
article of the Roman faith, binding on all her 
children, is one which we cannot discover any 
hint of in the Bible, which is not alluded to in 
any of the ancient creeds, and which is explicitly 
or implicitly denied by several of the greatest of 
the fathers, as St. Augustine and St. Bernard, 
and by the greatest of Roman Catholic divines, 
St. Thomas Aquinas, as well as by several of the 
Popes themselves. In the light of this fact, how 
could we accept the doctrine of the Immaculate 
Conception and at the same time profess the 
creed of Pope Pius IV. (which as good Catholics, 
we would be required to do), since it binds us 



Encyclical of Leo XIII 47 

never "to take or interpret the Scriptures other- 
wise than according to the unanimous consent of 
the Fathers?" 

Your Holiness will surely sympathize with the 
difficulty which is raised by these two contradic- 
tory requirements. 

2. Another very serious difficulty which rises 
up in the way of our accepting the terms of Chris- 
tian unity proposed by the encyclical, relates to 
the privilege of Peter and the alleged transmission 
of the same to his alleged successors — the Roman 
pontiffs. It is declared that "it cannot be 
doubted from the words of Holy Writ that the 
Church, by the will of God, rests on St. Peter as 
a building on the foundation." But where in 
Holy Writ is there any such statement? When 
our Lord said, "On this rock I will build my 
Church, " can we possibly believe that He referred 
to St. Peter in the face of the fact that in the Old 
Testament the title of Rock is reserved to God the 
Father, and in the New Testament to Christ 
Himself? To do so would be to contradict the 
solemn declaration of the holy apostle, St. Paul. 
"Other foundation can no man lay than that is 
laid, which is Jesus Christ/ ' Should we not, then, 
rather interpret as St. Chrysostom does, and as 
many other ancient fathers do, "On this rock I 
will build my Church, that is, on the faith of his 
confession," viz., "Thou art the Christ, the Son 
of the living God." To build on that faith is to 
build on Christ. Again, the encyclical alleges that 



48 Romanism in the Light of History 

"many prerogatives were bestowed upon St. 
Peter, apart from the apostles, " and among these 
is mentioned "the power of forgiving and retain- 
ing/ ' But with the greatest deference, may we 
venture to point out to your Holiness, that this 
power of "forgiving and retaining" was bestowed 
upon all the apostles indiscriminately? (See St. 
John xx.) And further, may we respectfully 
invite attention to the extraordinary fact that 
there is not a jot or tittle of evidence in the entire 
New Testament that St. Peter ever pretended to, 
or ever exercised, the supreme powers and preroga- 
tives which it is claimed were conferred upon him. 
If St. Peter was the vicegerent of Christ, why 
did St. Paul presume to rebuke him, as he tells 
us he did? (Gal. ii. n.) If he was supreme over 
the rest of the apostles why did not he, rather 
than St. James, preside in the first general council? 
(Acts xv.) And why did not he pronounce and 
promulgate the sentence of the council? Again, 
if St. Peter was the head ruler of the Church, why 
was he restricted to the apostleship of the cir- 
cumcision — that is, of the Jews? (Gal. ii. 7, 8.) 
And why did St. Paul assume to teach and direct 
the Church in Rome itself? Why, too, does St. 
Paul claim equality with "the very chief est of 
the apostles"? And then why does not St. Peter, 
in his epistles, make any allusion whatever to his 
possessing or exercising supreme authority in the 
Church? But is not the question closed by our 
blessed Lord's words, in which He forbade any 



Encyclical of Leo XIII 49 

distinction of rank among His apostles? (Luke 
xxii. 24-26.) 

Exercising our private judgment, then, as your 
Holiness invites us to do on the question of the 
primacy and supremacy of St. Peter over the 
Church, we are compelled to conclude that, so far 
as Holy Scripture is concerned, the doctrine you 
lay down seems to be destitute of any foundation, 
and to be, moreover, completely contradictory to 
the actual facts of the ecclesiastical government 
of the Church, as reflected in the New Testament. 

It is true that our Lord used words to St. Peter 
that he used to none other of His apostles. * They 
were, "I will give thee the keys of the kingdom 
of heaven." But this promise was abundantly 
fulfilled in the fact that to St. Peter, brave and 
devoted leader that he was, was given the great 
and enviable privilege of first opening the doors 
of the Christian Church to the Jews on the day 
of Pentecost, and to the Gentiles in the case of 
Cornelius and his friends at a later period. 

We observe that such a privilege was not in the 
nature of things transmissible to his successors; 
nor is there a syllable in the New Testament 
that indicates that whatever peculiar powers and 
privileges may have been his, he was to transmit 
them to those who succeeded him. Thus a great 
and insurmountable objection lies in the way of 
our submitting to the Roman pontiff as the 
alleged successor of St. Peter. If we open our 

1 See, however, this fact explained below, pp. 74 seq. 



50 Romanism in the Light of History 

Bible, as your Holiness invites us to do, we find 
that there is no foundation in its pages for the 
claims set up either for St. Peter or his successors. 
Doubtless we will be told that we do not rightly 
interpret the Holy Scriptures upon this point of 
the privilege of Peter and his successors. But, 
though we are ready to acknowledge our fallibility 
as interpreters of Holy Writ, observe, we pray, 
the embarrassment of our position. The creed 
of Pope Pius IV., as above remarked, binds all 
good Roman Catholics " never to interpret the 
Scriptures otherwise than according to the unani- 
mous consent of the Fathers.' ' But when we 
turn to the writings of the Fathers we do not find 
that they gave their " unanimous consent' ' to the 
interpretation of Holy Writ propounded by your 
Holiness in the encyclical upon this question. Far, 
indeed, from it. We find that the early Fathers 
generally assert the equality of all bishops. In 
particular, St. Cyprian declares that "the other 
apostles were, indeed, that which Peter was, 
endowed with equal consortship of honor and 
power;" St. Chrysostom, that St. Paul was " equal 
in honor" with St. Peter; St. Cyril, that St. Peter 
and St. John were "equal in honor to one another." 
St. Jerome, Dionysius, and Isidore affirm the same. 
As regards our Lord's words to blessed Peter, 
there appears great difference among the ancient 
Fathers as to their interpretation, and the weight 
of opinion is by no means with that given by your 
Holiness. Indeed, the great divines of the Roman 



Encyclical of Leo XIII 51 

Church, the schoolmen, and the canonists do not 
agree in their exposition. That great and good 
Pope, Gregory the Great, differs from your Holi- 
ness and agrees with St. Chrysostom. Here are 
his words: "In vera fide persistite, et vitarn vestram 
in petra ecclesice, hoc est in confessione B. Petri 
Apostolorum principis, solidate." 1 If, then, we 
are so unfortunate as not to be able to see in that 
famous passage (St. Matt, xvi.) the proof that our 
Lord has built His Church "on Peter, as a building 
on its foundation, " we derive consolation from 
finding ourselves in agreement with one of the 
best and most illustrious of the Popes, the great 
Gregory. 

As regards the power of the keys, alleged by 
your Holiness as given to St. Peter alone, we cannot 
find here either "unanimous consent' ' on the part 
of the ancient fathers. St. Augustine holds this 
power to be identical with the power of "binding 
and loosing sins," which was undoubtedly given 
to all the apostles (John xx.). Whatever its 
origin, St. Jerome, Theophylact, and St. Chrysos- 
tom (not to name others) affirm that all the 
apostles received the same power. 

As regards the commission to "feed" Christ's 
sheep, which the encyclical declares was given to 
Peter alone, there is no "unanimous consent' ' of 
the fathers upon this interpretation. Thus St. 
Cyril interprets them as a renewal of the former 
grant of apostleship, forfeited by his denial of 

1 Ep., Lib., iv. 38, p. 718. 



52 Romanism in the Light of History 

the Lord. And St. Augustine, "When it is said 
to Peter, it is said to all, Feed my sheep." In the 
same sense teach St. Cyprian, St. Ambrose, and 
St. Chrysostom. How great and insuperable 
then is the difficulty of accepting the proposal 
for unity which your Holiness puts forth in this 
encyclical! You call upon us to acknowledge 
the absolute supremacy of the Roman pontiff 
over our faith, over our consciences, over our 
conduct. Whatever doctrine he may from time 
to time declare "is contained in the deposit of 
revelation, it must be believed by every one as 
true." Whatever he may disallow must be 
refused, though all the bishops in the whole world 
agree in ordaining it. Whatever may be the 
accuracy and orthodoxy of our faith — though we 
should hold every doctrine, great and small, fully 
and heartily — we shall be nevertheless "placed 
outside the one fold," unless we submit to the 
authority of the Bishop of Rome. 

In support of so tremendous a claim, so bound- 
less an authority, you refer us to Holy Scripture 
and to the ancient Fathers. Accordingly, we 
reverently open the sacred volume, remembering 
blessed Peter's solemn caution against "wresting 
the Scriptures" to our "perdition." But we can 
find no support, but the contrary, in the volume 
of inspiration, for the awful powers and preroga- 
tives which the Roman pontiffs claim. We are, 
therefore, shut up to the dilemma, from which we 
find no escape, either to reject these claims, on 



Encyclical of Leo XIII 53 

pain of the anathema of the Holy See, or to accept 
them, against reason, against Scripture, against 
history, and on pain of blessed Peter's anathema 
upon those who " wrest the Scriptures' ' to " their 
own perdition." Should any of us, however, 
drawn by desire to be at unity with your Holiness 
and the great communion, of which you are the 
head, incline to take the awful risk of surrendering 
our reason and our faith to the dominion of the 
Holy See, contrary to the plain sense of Holy 
Scripture, we should find ourselves forsworn before 
God, because, when we should have declared, 
11 Neither will I ever take or interpret the Scrip- 
tures otherwise than according to the unanimous 
consent of the fathers" (creed of Pius IV.), we 
should have actually submitted to an interpreta- 
tion of the Scriptures which has no claim whatever 
to be supported by the " unanimous consent of the 
fathers." 

But if we refuse to place ourselves in such a 
position, and choose, rather, to listen to the voice 
of Holy Scripture, as we understand it, and as so 
many of the best and holiest of the fathers have 
understood it, and so reject the proposals of the 
encyclical, believing that unity would be too 
dearly purchased at the cost of the approval of 
our own consciences and the stultification of our 
reason, and the extinguishment of the light of 
history, we may at least reflect that in so doing 
we are at one with that good man, Pope Gregory 
the Great. Here are his words, addressed to the 



54 Romanism in the Light of History 

Bishop of Constantinople: "What wilt thou say 
to Christ the Head of the Universal Church, in 
the trial of the last judgment, who, by the appella- 
of 'Universal' (Bishop), dost endeavor to subject 
all His members to thee? Whom, I pray, dost 
thou mean to imitate in so perverse a word, but 
him who, despising the legions of angels constituted 
in fellowship with him, did endeavor to break 
forth unto the top of singularity, that he might 
both be subject to none, and alone be over all?'' 
And again St. Gregory says: "I confidently 
say that whoever doth call himself universal 
bishop, or desireth to be so called, doth, in his 
elation, forerun Antichrist, because he proudly 
doth set himself before the rest." 

We cannot but ask, What would Pope Gregory 
the Great have said to the titles now assumed by 
his successors, such as "the vicegerent of God, " 
"the vicar of Christ on earth," whose "teachings 
should be received as if they were His own, " and 
whom the whole episcopate must be "subject 
to" on pain of being considered "a lawless and 
disorderly crowd ' ' ? 

3. Several other difficulties there are which 
I have space only to mention without enlarging 
upon. Why is it that, if this tremendous power 
was by Christ lodged with St. Peter and his 
successors, it was not so plainly and clearly stated 
that there could be no question about His meaning 
among honest Christians? Why did not the 
apostles declare it and expound it, being a doctrine 



Encyclical of Leo XIII 55 

second to none in importance? Why did not St. 
Peter himself allude to it in his epistles? Why is it 
not embodied in the Catholic creeds of the Church? 
Why is it not explained or alluded to in any of the 
decrees of the general Councils of the Church? 
Why do none of the great doctors and divines 
of the Church, in all their extensive and elaborate 
treatises on divinity and on the faith of the Church, 
explain and defend it? Why did not the Popes, 
if they possessed these sovereign powers, not 
summon one of the six general Councils of the 
Church? Why did some of those Councils ignore 
the wishes of the Pope or decree contrary to them? 
Why was the papal authority never synodically 
defined until the Lateran Synod in the year 12 15? 
Why was Papal infallibility (a doctrine of such 
overshadowing importance) never defined and 
promulgated until the Vatican Council of 1870? 
And why was there so much uncertainty on the 
subject prior to that council that a popular con- 
troversial catechism, approved and sanctioned by 
Bishops and an Archbishop, even taught that it 
was " a Protestant invention " to say that Catholics 
must believe the infallibility of the Pope? 

4. But even these difficulties are not all. 
Could they be each one removed out of the way we 
should still remain in the greatest perplexity upon 
several points. 

For example: We should have accepted the 
Roman pontiff as supreme, sovereign, and infallible, 
and yet we could not deny that various Popes 



56 Romanism in the Light of History 

have shown themselves anything but infallible 
in matters of faith. History would still testify 
that Pope Liberius denied the divinity of Christ 
and anathematized St. Athanasius, the champion 
of orthodoxy; that Pope Honorius was condemned 
by a general council as a heretic, and was pro- 
claimed by Pope Leo II. to be under the sentence 
of " eternal condemnation"; that Popes John XII., 
Benedict IX., Gregory VI., and John XXIII. 
were deposed by the Church. Our difficulty here 
is twofold. First, we cannot reconcile these 
historical facts with the doctrine of the infallibility 
of the Roman pontiff, to whom we are bidden to 
render obedience as the vicegerent of God and the 
vicar of Christ. And, second, we ask ourselves, 
suppose the next Pope should, like Pope Liberius, 
deny the divinity of our Lord and assure the flock 
of Christ that the doctrine of Arianism had been 
" contained in the deposit of divine revelation, " 
as good Roman Catholics we should be obliged 
to believe this teaching, but at the same time we 
should know it to be contrary to the Holy Scrip- 
tures and the ancient creeds, and the teachings 
of the holy fathers of the primitive church. We 
find an insuperable difficulty in believing two 
contradictory propositions, or in comprehending 
how the dogma of infallibility is to be applied in 
the numerous cases in which different Popes have 
contradicted each other in matters of doctrine. 

We may be told, indeed, that our difficulty 
arises from a misapprehension of the dogma of 



Encyclical of Leo XIII 57 

papal infallibility, and this we will not deny. But 
we find that the great princes and doctors of the 
Church, the very Cardinals themselves, do not 
agree as to its scope and meaning. We observe 
that those two great Cardinals, Newman and 
Manning, held quite contrary opinions as to the 
extent and nature of the papal infallibility. Thus 
Cardinal Manning declared that the " syllabus of 
1864 was part of the supreme and infallible teach- 
ing of the Church"; but Cardinal Newman was 
of opinion that it had "no dogmatic force" and 
made "no claim to be acknowledged as the word 
of the Pope." If these great leaders and theo- 
logians held such diametrically opposite opinions 
on this vital and tremendous doctrine, what hope 
can plain and unlearned folk have of ascertaining 
its true meaning? It seemed no doubt to many 
a great result and achievement to have at last 
secured absolute certainty of belief by accepting 
the infallibility of the pontiff. But if, after all, 
they cannot tell when he speaks with infallibility, 
or how far his teaching is infallible, how are they 
profited? Is not certainty as far off as ever? 
They may have cried "Eureka" as they grasped 
at last the dogma of infallibility, but after all it 
seems they have grasped a shadow. They have 
been like men pursuing the rainbow. The pot 
of gold may indeed lie at the rainbow's foot, but 
the rainbow forever retreats and eludes their 
grasp. 

Deeply regretting that the great cause of 



58 Romanism in the Light of History 

Christian unity does not seem to be advanced by 
the proposals of the encyclical, which are in sub- 
stance only a summons to surrender at discretion, 
and praying that the time may come when Rome 
may use her great power and prestige to draw 
together the divided members of Christendom on 
some comprehensive basis of Scripture and an- 
tiquity, I am, reverend Pontiff, with great respect, 
yours very truly. 



IV 

WAS PETER THE ROCK? 

I UNDERTAKE in the following pages to es- 
tablish the correctness of my statements in 
the foregoing "Open Letter, " and to illustrate 
them as occasion may require. 

Let us begin with the great words of Christ, 
which are the alleged foundation of the Papacy. 
It has been asked above, "Should we not rather 
interpret as St. Chrysostom does, and as many 
ancient Fathers do, On this rock I will build my 
Church — that is, on the faith of his confession?" 

In justification of this statement, let the follow- 
ing passages be considered : 

St. Chrysostom: 

1. Si> el Ilfrpos, teal iirl ra&ry I. "Thou art Peter, and 
tJ irtrpa olKodofAr)<ru fwv ri}*> upon this rock will I build my 
iiacXriaiap, tovt^cti, ry wta-rei church — that is, the faith of 
Tijs bfwXoyLas. Horn. LIV, p. his confession. " 

548, A. Paris, 1727. 

2. 'EttI raijry t% ntrpa, oifK 2. " Upon this rock, he said, 
direv M rf n^rpv obre yap iirl not upon Peter: for not on the 
rip avOpAiry, dW > iirl ttjp icIvtlv man but upon his faith in 
tt]v tavrov 4KK\r)<riap (#Kod6/Ar)<T€. Himself did He build His 
Chrys. Tom. V, Or. 163. * Church." 

1 Quoted by Bp. Barrow. 

59 



60 Romanism in the Light of History 

3. Contrasting the more perfect faith of Peter 
with that of Nathaniel, he says: 

'AXX' ws dir7)pTL(rfiiv7]s avTip 3. "But as if his faith had 

TTjs iri<TT€U)s, tt)p iKK\ii(riav€<pr]<r€v been made perfect, he said he 

iirl ofioXoyiav oUodofM^etv ttjv would build the Church upon 

iKelvov. Horn, xxi, on John i. his confession. " 
50, p. 120, C. 

One of my critics 1 labors to break the force of 
this interpretation given by the great Bishop 
and Orator of Constantinople. He quotes several 
passages which show this Father's exalted opinion 
of the position and authority of Peter, as "the 
mouth of all the apostles, the summit of the whole 
college, " and then he cries out that I have per- 
verted history by a " partial citation." 

But not all this can shake the fact which alone 
I alleged, that St. Chrysostom interpreted the 
Rock to mean not Peter but the confession which 
Peter made. 2 In challenging the interpretation 
given in Pope Leo's Encyclical, I quoted St, 
Chrysostom and St. Gregory the Great as sup- 
porting the view that the Church was not built 
upon Peter as the Rock, but upon Peter's Confes- 
sion of the Divinity of Christ. No matter, there- 
fore, what the views of these Fathers upon Peter's 
Primacy, their opinion upon the true interpreta- 
tions of that famous passage stands. But, after 

1 Father Stafford. 

a In placing St. Chrysostom in the category of those Fathers 
who interpret the Rock as not Peter but Peter's confession, we 
have the support of the learned Roman Catholic theologian, Rt. 
Rev. Dr. Kenrick, Archbishop of St. Louis. (See below.) 



Encyclical of Leo XIII 61 

all, what was the view of the golden-mouthed 
orator of Constantinople upon the Primacy of 
Peter? 

It is true he calls him "the mouth of the 
apostles' ' (t& aTo^a t<dv axocruoXcov), and again, "the 
coryphaeus of the apostles" (twv axocTrfXcov xopu- 
(patoq) . We do not deny that St. Peter was the leader 
and spokesman of the Apostolic College. That is a 
very different thing from being the "foundation" 
of the Church, or its absolute ruler, or its infallible 
head. My critic, however, alleges the following 
from St. Chrysostom: "He placed this man 
Peter over the whole world," and this again: 
"He set over it Peter, the doctor of the whole 
world, to whom he gave the keys of heaven, to 
whose will and power he trusted all things." 

But this same Chrysostom elsewhere styles 
St. John "the Pillar of the Churches throughout 
the world" (6 gt6Xo<; tg>v xaxa tyjv oJxoujjlIvtqv IxxXiq- 
ffiwv), and St. Paul he calls "the apostle of the 
world" (ty)<; otxouyivr)<; , A%6<jzo\oq) f who "had the 
care of the whole world" (oXoxXifaou tyjs ofxou- 
Hivt)<; 9povd8a e'xo>v). Again, he contrasts St. Paul 
with Michael, to whom was committed the care 
of the Jewish nation, and says, "But Pattf was 
entrusted with the earth and the sea and the 
inhabited and uninhabited parts of the world" 
(IlauXoq Ss ytjv, xal OaXaixav, xal t^v o(xoufjievY)v xal tyjv 
dohajTov). 

If in one place he calls St. Peter "the teacher of 
the whole world" (tyjs oJxouyivYjq StSdaxaXov. Horn. 



62 Romanism in the Light of History 

88 on John, p. 527 B.), in another place he styles 
St. Paul "the Father of the whole world' ' OuaTYjp 
ty]<; oho\j\L&vr\q. De Laudib. Pauli. Horn. 3 [II, 
490]). _ 

Again, in his Commentary on the Galatians, 
speaking of St. Paul's visit to St. Peter after his 
conversion, he says: 

yirjdtp Uhpov deo/xepos, firjdl " He asked nothing of Peter, 

ttjs €K€ivov 0w^s, d\\' 1(t6tl/ios nor of his voice, being equal in 

&v avrf* ir\hv yhp ovdtv ipw honor with him — for I will not 

r<?ws. Epist. ad Gal., Cap. i now say more," implying his 

[x. 677]. superiority to Peter. 

These passages demonstrate that the lofty titles 
given by this writer to St. Peter were not intended 
to exalt him to a pinnacle of authority and power 
over the other apostles, since titles to the full as 
high-sounding are by him conferred upon two other 
apostles. They also afford, inferentially, a cri- 
terion by which we may judge of the value of 
similar rhetorical exaggerations of expression in 
the Fathers generally. 

St. Augustine: 

1. Sermo CCXCV. In Na- 1. "Upon this rock will I 
tali Apost., p. 1 194. Super build my church. Upon this 
hanc petram aedincabo Eccle- rock will I build, (that is) the 
siam meam. Super hanc pe- faith which thou dost confess: 
tram aedificabo, fidem quam upon this which thou hast said, 
conflteris. Super hoc quod Thou art the Christy the Son of 
dixisti, Tues Christus filius Dei the Living God, I will build my 
ww, aedincabo ecclesiam meam. church. " 

2. Again, in his 13th Sermon (not to quote 
other passages), Augustine says: 



Encyclical of Leo XIII 63 

"Thou art Peter, and on this rock which thou hast 
confessed — on this rock which thou hast known, saying 
Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God — I will 
build my Church upon myself, the Son of the living 
God ; i" will build it on Me and not Me on thee. " 

It is true that the great Bishop of Hippo was 
not always consistent with himself in his interpre- 
tation of the passage. He says of himself, writing 
in his old age: "When I was still a Presbyter, 
I wrote a book ... in which I said in a certain 
place, concerning the apostle Peter, that the 
Church is founded on him as a rock. . . . But I 
know that I have afterwards, in very many places, 
so expounded the Lord's saying, ' Thou art Peter 
and on this rock I will build my Church/ as to 
be understood of Him whom Peter confessed. . . . 
And so Peter, named from this Rock, would 
typify the person of the Church which is built 
upon this Rock, . . . but of these two meanings 
let the reader choose the more probable.' ' Com- 
menting on this the Bishop of Manchester says: 
"The last word, then, of St. Augustine is this — 
that the Rock meant either Christ or Peter; and 
he thinks the matter so unimportant that he leaves 
it to each reader to select which of the two senses 
seems to him the more probable. The Rock is 
Christ or Peter; Peter's Chair it cannot be. The 
interpretation, if he ever held it, is abandoned." 1 

1 See Charge of the Ven. Wm. M. Sinclair, D.D., Archdeacon of 
London (1896), p. 39. 



64 Romanism in the Light of History 

A remarkable testimony was given as to this 
much disputed passage at the Vatican Council 
of 1870 by no less a prelate than the Roman 
Catholic Archbishop of St. Louis, Rt. Rev. Dr. 
Kenrick, in a speech prepared for, though not 
delivered in, the Council, but nevertheless pub- 
lished to the world. In it he quotes with approval 
a treatise which he says had been circulated in 
the Council, wherein it was shown that there were 
five distinct interpretations of St. Matt. xvi. 18 
given by the Fathers, and draws two conclusions: 
first, that if we ought to follow the greater number 
of the Fathers in the interpretation of this passage, 
then we are bound to hold it certain that by the 
Rock we ought to understand not Peter but the 
Faith prof essed by Peter; and, second, that either no 
argument at all, or at least no probable argument, 
can be derived in support of the Primacy of Peter 
from the words, "Upon this Rock will I build my 
Church." 

I give a part of the Archbishop's speech. It is 
enough fully to justify my statement that "many 
other ancient Fathers interpret the Rock to mean 
not Peter but Peter's confession/ ' It will be 
observed that this learned writer finds several 
of the Fathers advocating now one, now another 
of the five interpretations; also that forty-four 
out of eighty-five Fathers examined interpret the 
passage as I have done, among them one of the 
Popes, Leo the Great, while only seventeen hold 
that Peter was the Rock; and finally that, since 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 



65 



Roman Catholics are bound to accept no inter- 
pretation of Scripture that is not supported by 
the unanimous consent of the Fathers, they cannot 
consistently build the primacy of Peter upon this 
passage. 

Archbishop Kenrick: 



"Invenimus quinque diver- 
s a s interpretationes v e r b i 
' Petra* in loco allata; ' quarum 
prima asserit,' — verba exscribo, 
' super Petrum aedificatam 
ecclesiam,' quam sequuntur 
Patres septemdecim et inter- 
istos Origenes, Cyprianus, Hie- 
ronymus, Hilarius, Cyrillus 
Alexandrinus, Leo Magnus, 
Augustinus. Secunda interpre- 
tatio verba ilia: 'super hanc 
petram aedificabo Ecclesiam 
meam' intelligit, Ecclesiam 
sedificatam esse super omnes 
apostolos quos Petrus propter 
Primatum in se representabat. 
Et hanc sequuntur octo Patres 
et inter hos Origines, Cy- 
prianus, Hieronymus, Augus- 
tinus, Theodoretus. Tertia 
interpretatio asserit verba ilia: 
'Super hanc petram aedificabo 
Ecclesiam meam' intelligenda 
esse de fide, quam Confessus 
erat Petrus, ut, scilicet, haec 
fides, haec professio fidei, qua 
credimus Christum esse Filium 
Dei vivi, sit aeternum et im- 
mobile fundamentum Ecclesiae. 
Et haec interpretatio est omni- 



" We find five different inter- 
pretations of the word ' Petra ' 
in the place quoted, ' of which 
the first asserts' — I quote the 
words — 'that the church is 
built upon Peter/ which 
opinion seventeen Fathers 
adopt, and among them Origen 
Cyprian, Jerome, Hilary, 
Cyril of Alexandria, Leo the 
Great, Augustine. The 
second interpretation under- 
stands those words 'upon this 
rock I will build my Church, ' 
to mean that He would build 
His Church upon all the 
apostles whom Peter on ac- 
count of his primacy repre- 
sented in his own person. And 
this interpretation is followed 
by eight Fathers, and among 
them by Origen, Cyprian, 
Jerome, Augustine, Theodoret. 
The third interpretation asserts 
that those words 'Upon this 
rock I will build my church* 
are to be understood of the 
faith which Peter had con- 
fessed, to the end that this 
faith, this profession of faith 
wherebv we believe Christ to 



66 Romanism in the Light of History 



um solemnior, quam sequuntur 
Patres doctoresque quadra- 
ginta quatuor : et inter istos, ex 
Oriente, Gregorius Nissenus, 
Cyrillus Alexandrinus, Chry- 
sostomus, Theophylactus ; ex 
Occidente, Hilarius, Am- 
brosius, Leo Magnus; ex 
Africa, Augustinus. Quarta 
interpretatio assent, verba ilia: 
'super hanc petram aedificabo 
Ecclesiam meam,' — intelli- 
genda esse de ilia petra, quam 
confessus fueret Petrus, i.e. 
Christum, ut scilicet Ecclesia 
inaedificata sit super Christum ; 
et hanc interpretationem se- 
quuntur Patres doctoresque 
sexdecim. Quinta Patrum 
interpretatio nomine petrae 
intelligit etiam ipsos fideles, 
qui credentes Christum esse 
Filium Dei constituuntur 
lapides vivi, ex quibus aedifi- 
catur Ecclesia. 



be the Son of the Living God, 
might be the eternal and 
immovable foundation of the 
church. And this interpreta- 
tion is of all others the most 
weighty, inasmuch as forty- 
four Fathers and doctors follow 
it; and among them, from the 
East, Gregory of Nyssa, 
Cyril of Alexandria, Chry- 
sostom, Theophylact; from 
the West, Hilary, Ambrose, 
Leo the Great; from Africa, 
Augustine. The fourth inter- 
pretation asserts that those 
words 'Upon this rock I will 
build my church' is to be 
understood of that rock which 
Peter had confessed, i. e. 
Christ, to the end that the 
church may be built upon 
Christ; and this interpretation 
sixteen Fathers and doctors 
follow. The fifth interpreta- 
tion of the Fathers under- 
stands by the name of the 
rock also the faithful them- 
selves, who believing Christ to 
be the Son of God are con- 
stituted the living stones of 
which the church is built. 



"Ex hoc sequitur aut nullum 
omnino argumentum in pro- 
bationem Primatus ex verbis 
'super hanc Petram aedificabo 
Ecclesiam meam,' aut non 
nisi tenuiter probabile, sup- 
piditari. ... Si majorem 
numerum Patrum in hac re 



"From this it follows either 
that no argument at all in 
proof of the primacy can be 
derived from the words ' Upon 
this rock I will build my 
Church,' or at least one of 
slender probability. ... If 
we ought in this matter to 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 



67 



sequi debemus, tunc pro certo 
tenendum est per Petram, 
Fidem a Petro professam, non 
autem Petrum, fidem profiten- 
tem, intelligi oportere. " 



Concio Petri Kenrick archi- 
episcopi S. Ludovici. See 
Friedrich, Documenta ad 
Illus. Cone, Vati. Vol. I, p. 
195, 196. 

"Obvium est ex verbis 'Tu 
es Petrus/ &c., argumentum 
peremptorem in probationem 
etiam Primatus educi nequire.' 
Id., p. 198. * 



follow the greater number of 
the Fathers, then it must be 
held for certain that by the 
Rock we ought to understand 
the Faith professed by Peter, 
not Peter who professed the 
Faith." 

Address of Peter Kenrick, 
archbishop of St. Louis, pre- 
pared for the Vatican Council 
of 1870. See Friedrich, Docu- 
ments Illustrating the Vatican 
Council, Vol. I, p. 195, 196. 

Again: "It is obvious that 
from the words 'Thou art 
Peter/ &c, a conclusive argu- 
ment in proof of the primacy 
cannot be drawn." Id., p. 
198. 



x The Council of Trent itself declares that the "one and firm 
foundation against which the gates of Hell shall not prevail' ' is 
the Nicene Symbol of Faith. 



PRELIMINARY PROPOSITIONS NECESSARY TO THE 
PAPAL CLAIMS 

SO much may suffice for this famous passage 
which has been made the chief, if not the sole, 
Scriptural foundation upon which the stupendous 
structure of the Papacy has been reared — it 
would be more exact to say by which it has been 
defended. In the light of the facts now brought 
forward, it can no longer be claimed as a support 
for that system by any candid controversialist. 
The principle by which Rome has bound herself 
precludes her (as Archbishop Kenrick points out) 
from relying upon these words of Christ in defend- 
ing herself — nay, compels her to reject that inter- 
pretation as untrue — and if she were consistent 
with herself the words which encircle the dome of 
St. Peter's: 

"TU ES PETRUS, ET SUPER HANC PETRAM ^DIFICABO 
ECCLESIAM MEAM," 

would long since have been erased. 

But suppose the case were different, and it could 
be established that Peter was the rock on which 
Christ declared He would build His Church, 
would the Roman claim be thereby established? 

68 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 69 

This conclusion is often assumed, but it is far 
indeed from being true. There are several other 
propositions of the greatest importance which 
would have first to be established. Let me 
enumerate them: 

1. In building His Church upon Peter, Christ 
made him the supreme head and ruler of the 
Church, to whom all the rest of the apostles and 
officers of the Church were to be subject. 

2. These powers of jurisdiction and govern- 
ment were transmitted to the successors of St. 
Peter. 

3. St. Peter was the bishop of Rome, and the 
Popes are his successors. 

But not one of these propositions can be es- 
tablished either from Scripture or from the writings 
of the Fathers of the first four centuries. As to 
the first, as I have pointed out in the text of my 
Letter, no words of Christ can be alleged in its 
support. Pope Leo XIII's statement that various 
prerogatives were conferred upon Peter alone, in 
exclusion of the rest of the Apostles, is clean con- 
trary to Holy Scripture. The power of forgiving 
and retaining, the commission to make disciples 
of all nations, the mission to feed Christ's sheep, 
the gift of the Holy Ghost — all these were conferred 
equally upon the other Apostles, as I have shown, 
and as the early Fathers testify. If Peter was 
singled out after the Resurrection for especial 
attention by the Lord in His instructions to the 
Eleven, it was because he, being the leader by 



70 Romanism in the Light of History 

age and by temperament, had professed peculiar 
fidelity, and had been most conspicuous in his 
infidelity in the hour of trial. If the Lord thrice 
said to him, "Feed my sheep, " he also, in plain 
allusion to his triple denial, thrice demanded of 
him, " Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?" 
Now, it is further evident that if such powers had 
been conferred upon Peter there must have been 
(i) a clear statement of them — which we nowhere 
find, and (2) some evidence in the subsequent 
New Testament history of the exercise of these 
powers. But (as I have again shown above, 
there is no evidence whatever of Peter's having 
claimed or exercised such prerogatives, whereas 
there is evidence of the contrary. This being the 
case, it is not strange that none of my critics has 
made any attempt to meet the Scriptural argument 
upon this point — nor, indeed, has made any 
allusion to it. 

As to the second proposition, viz., that these 
extraordinary powers and prerogatives were in- 
tended to pass to the successors of St. Peter, 
there is not a syllable in Holy Scripture that can 
by any ingenuity be made to support such a view, 
and I am not aware that the Roman controver- 
sialists attempt to bring forward any Scripture 
for this end. Certainly Pope Leo, in his Ency- 
clical here considered, does not. 

As to the third thesis, that St. Peter was Bishop 
of Rome and that the Popes are his successors, 
there appears to be no historical evidence that this 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 71 

apostle ever was bishop of Rome. Dionysius, 
bishop of Corinth (a.d. 180), says that St. Peter 
taught at Rome and suffered martyrdom there; 
but then he says the same thing of St. Paul, and 
neither fact establishes his episcopal jurisdiction 
in Rome. Tertullian's statement that Clement 
was ordained at Rome by Peter, not only fails to 
establish the fact that he was bishop of Rome, 
but is itself plainly a complete mistake, since 
Clement did not become bishop of Rome till a.d. 
90, twenty-three years after St. Peter's death, 
which occurred a.d 67. 

In truth, the first bishop of Rome was not 
Peter, but Linus, as is incontestably established 
by the testimony of Irenaeus. Thus the whole 
theory of St. Peter's twenty-five years' Episcopate 
at Rome, when brought to the bar of historical 
investigation, collapses, and with it the Papal 
claim of inheritance of supreme power as his legiti- 
mate successors. s 

It is interesting to compare the answer made by 
the Eastern Church to Pope Leo XIII. upon this 
point. It is found in the Patriarchal and Synodical 
Encyclical Letter addressed to the Metropolitans 
and Bishops by the Patriarch of Constantinople 
and his brethren, 2 in the month of August, 1895: 

"When we refer back to the Fathers and to the 
(Ecumenical Councils of the first nine centuries, we 

1 See Archdeaon Sinclair's Charge ut supra, pp. 33, 34. 
8 Published by John & E. Bumpus, Oxford St., London. 



72 Romanism in the Light of History 

find that the bishop of Rome was never recognized as 
the supreme authority or as the infallible head of the 
Church; on the contrary, each bishop was the head 
and president of his own local church, being subject 
only to synodical decrees and to the decisions of the 
Church at large, which alone is infallible. From this 
general rule the bishop of Rome was least exempt, as 
the history of the Church shows, since the only ever- 
lasting Chief and the immortal Head of the Church is 
our Lord Jesus Christ ; for ' He is the head of the body 
of the Church/ he who hath said to his divine disciples 
and apostles on his assumption into heaven, 'and lo, I 
am with you alway unto the end of the world/ Peter, 
whom the papists — on the strength of the Apocry- 
phal Pseudo-Clementines of the Second Century — 
have purposely imagined to be the founder of the 
Roman Church and its first bishop, — Peter is seen in 
Scripture discussing as an equal with his equals of the 
apostolic Synod of Jerusalem. On another occasion 
he is bitterly reproached by Paul, as is manifest in the 
Epistle to the Galatians. . . . Such being the inspired 
teaching of the apostles, as regards the foundation and 
the head of the Church of God, it is but natural that 
the Divine Fathers, who are immediately connected 
with apostolic tradition, should have had and could 
have conceived no idea of an absolutistic supremacy 
either in the apostle Peter or in the bishops of Rome, 
nor could they attribute to the gospel text in question 
an interpretation wholly foreign to the Church, but 
only its true and orthodox meaning. They could not 
invent arbitrarily and of their own will a novel dogma, 
erecting upon a pretended succession to Peter an over- 
bearing supremacy of the Roman bishop. 

"This could be even less so, considering that the 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 73 

Church of Rome was founded, not by Peter, of whose 
apostolic work in Rome history knows nothing, but 
mainly through the disciples of the heaven-soaring 
apostle of the nations, Paul, whose apostolic ministry 
in Rome is clear to all men" (pp. 7-9). 



VI 

PETER AND THE POWER OF THE KEYS 

REFERRING to the power of the keys, the 
Papal Encyclical declares, "Thus the power 
of St. Peter is supreme and absolutely independ- 
ent/' And again, "Many (prerogatives) were be- 
stowed upon St. Peter apart from the Apostles, " 
among which are enumerated "the power of for- 
giving and retaining/ ' and "the authority to feed." 
Such an assertion is completely overthrown by the 
New Testament record, which shows that these 
powers were conferred equally upon the other 
apostles. Thus in St. John xx. 23, we read that 
the Risen Lord said to the assembled Apostles: 

"Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted 
unto them; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they 
are retained." 

As stated in the text of my Letter, the Fathers 
assert equality of power and authority among the 
apostles. 

For example, the illustrious Isidore, Bp. of 
Seville (ob. a.d. 636). 

Quoting Matt. xvi. 18, he proceeds: 

74 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 



75 



"Hie ergo ligandi, solvendi- 
que potestatem primus accepit, 
primusque ad fidem populum 
virtute suae praedicationis ad- 
duxit, siquidem et caeteri apos- 
toli cum Petro pari consortio 
honoris et potestatis effecti 
sunt." 

Isidori Hispalensis, De Ecc. 
Omciis II, Cap v., p. 456 (ed. 
of 1778). 

Bishop Barrow quotes the following: * 



"This man therefore first 
received the power of binding 
and loosing, and he first led 
the people unto faith by virtue 
of his preaching, since the 
other apostles also were clothed 
with a fellowship of honor and 
power equal to that of Peter." 



St. Cyprian: 



"Hoc erant utique et caeteri 
apostoli quod fuit Petrus, pari 
consortio praediti et honoris et 
potestatis." Again: "Apos- 
tolis omnibus post resurrec- 
tionem suam parem potestatem 
tribuat." Cyp. de Un. Eccl. 
B., p. 93. 



"Certainly the other apostles 
were that which Peter was, 
endowed with an equal fellow- 
ship of honor and power. " 
And: "After his resurrection, 
he distributes to all the apostles 
equal power." 



St. Chrysostom : 



"Aeucvtis, 8ti ttjs airrjs ^Karros 
&w£\av<rev d££as." Gall. ii. 8. 
(Of St. John) "6 rAs k\&% X m 
rwv otyavQp." Praef. Evan. Joh. 



" Showing, that each one re- 
ceived the same dignity." 
"He (St. John) hath the keys 
of heaven." 



He calls St. Paul tafot^ov auT<p, " Equal in honor 
to him" (St. Peter). 

St. Cyril : 

"JUrpos Kal 'Ico&ppys IvSrifwi "Peter and John equal to 

dXX^Xois." one another in honor. " 



1 Supremacy of the Pope, p. 93 seq. 



76 Romanism in the Light of History 



Theophylact : 



"El yap irpbs TLirpov phvov 
elprjTcu, rb 8Q<ru) <roi\ AXX& Kal 
iracri rots * A7TO(Tt6Xoi$ Sidorai. 
In loco. 



" Is it said to Peter alone * I 
will give thee'? Nay, it is 
given also to all the apostles." 



Origen : 



tl Apa dt T(J5 H^Tpw fidvcp, 8L- 
dovrai virb rod Kvpiov at KXecdes 
rrjs tQv ovpav&v fiaaikelas, Kal 
oudeXs Zrepos rwv fiaKapiwv auras 
X^erat; et 5£ Koivbv iari Kal 
irpbs irtpovs rb divaa vol tcls 
itXeiSas rrjs fiaaCKelas T&vovpavu>v t 
ttCjs oi>xi Kal iravra rare irpoeipr)- 
fjitva, Kal ra iiricpepb/jLepa ws irpbs 
U^Tpov XeXe7/A^a;" Orig. on 
Matt. xvi. 



"Are the keys of the King- 
dom of Heaven, then, given to 
Peter only? And shall none 
other of the blessed [apostles] 
receive them? But if the 
promise 'I will give thee the 
Keys of the Kingdom of 
Heaven ' is common also to the 
others, why are not also all 
the things spoken before and 
following after as addressed 
to Peter?" 



Abp. Kenrick, in his speech for the Vatican 
Council, quotes the following: 

5/. Augustine: 



"'Tibi dabo claves regni 
ccelorum,' tanquam ligandi et 
solvendi solus acceperit potes- 
tatem: cum et illud unus pro 
omnibus dixerit, et hoc cum 
omnibus tanquam personam 
generis ipsius unitatis accep- 
erit; ideo unus pro omnibus, 
quia unitas est in omnibus." 
In Joann. Evang. cxviii., c. 4 



" ' I will give thee the keys of 
the Kingdom of Heaven, ' as if 
he alone received the power of 
binding and loosing; since he, 
one speaking for all, made that 
confession, and so received this 
(promise) for all, as if he bore 
the person of their unity; 
therefore one for all, because 
the unity is in all. " 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 



77 



St. Ambrose: 



"Tibi inquit, dabo claves 
regni ccelorum; et ut solvas et 
ligas . . . Quod Petro dicitur, 
apostolis dicitur." In Ps. xxviii. 
n. 37- 



" To thee he says, ' I will give 
the keys of the Kingdom of 
Heaven, and that thou mayst 
loose and bind.' . . . What he 
says to Peter, he says to the 
Apostles. " 



Bishop Jewel quotes the following (in the Latin 
version) from 

St. Basil: 



1 ' Omnes [pastoreset doctores] 
ex aequo et ligant, et absolvunt, 
quern ad modum ille [Petrus]." 

In Libello de Vita Solitaria, 
cap. 23 [II. 755]. See Jewel, 
vol. ii., p. 170. 

And this from 



"All pastors and teachers 
equally both bind and absolve 
in the same manner as he 
[Peter]." 



St. Jerome: 



"At dices, super Petrum 
fundatur ecclesia: licet id ip- 
sum in alio loco super omnes 
apostolos fiat, et cuncti claves 
regni ccelorum accipiant, et ex 
aequo super eos ecclesiae forti- 
tudo solidetur." Adv. Jov- 
inianum, lib. I. [iv. pt. 2, 168]. 



Compare 



" But you say, the Church is 
founded upon Peter; although 
in another place that same 
(act of founding) is done upon 
all the apostles, and all receive 
the keys of the Kingdom of 
Heaven, and equally upon 
them is the strength of the 
Church imposed. " 



St. Augustine: 



"Cum dicitur Petro, ad 
omnes dicitur, 'Pasce oves 
meas.' " De Agone Christi, 30. 



"When it is said to Peter, it 
is said to all, ' Feed my sheep/ " 



78 Romanism in the Light of History 

and 

St. Chrysostom : 

In Matt. Horn, lxxvii. p. " Feed my sheep — this is not 

749 B. said to the hierarchy alone, but 

"HolfmiveThirpblicLT&iJuov ... to each one of us to whom is 

oti irpbs Up4as tovto phvov el- entrusted even a little flock." 
p^rai, d\Xa Kal irpbs iKa<rrov 
TjpLidv t&v Kal (uicpbv, ifMiremo-Tcv- 
ixkviav irolpiviov." 

Dr. Littledale quotes the following from Cyril 
of Alexandria : 

By this triple confession of blessed Peter, his sin, 
consisting of a triple denial, was done away, and by 
the words of our Lord, " Feed my sheep/ ' a renewal, 
as it were, of the apostleship already conferred on him 
is understood to take place, removing the shame of 
his after fall and taking from him the cowardice of 
human frailty. (Comm. in Joann. xxi.) 



11 1 conclude victoriously, with history, with reason, with logic, 
with good sense, and with a Christian conscience, that Jesus 
Christ did not confer any supremacy on St. Peter, and that the 
Bishops of Rome did not become sovereigns of the church, but 
only by confiscating, one by one, all the rights of the Episcopate." 

VII 

THE PRIMACY OF PETER 

TN the foregoing pages it has been shown that 
* neither in Holy Scripture nor in the ancient 
Fathers is there assigned to St. Peter the office of 
supreme head and ruler of the church, to whom uni- 
versal jurisdiction and absolute power were com- 
mitted by Christ. But it is not denied that that 
apostle was the leader among the apostles, their 
spokesman and representative, both by reason of age 
and of the ardent, active temperament he possessed, 
and that in this way he held a kind of primacy 
among them; the primacy of one who was primus 
inter pares. Accordingly, in my Letter to Pope Leo 
I have said : " To St. Peter, brave and devoted leader 
that he was, was given the great and enviable privi- 
lege of first opening the doors of the Christian 
Church to the Jews on the day of Pentecost, and to 
the Gentiles in the case of Cornelius and his friends 
at a later period. ' ' This was the view of Tertullian, 
who says St. Peter, "did initiate the key" (ipse 
clavem imbuit) by first preaching the Gospel in 
Jerusalem after the Ascension. Gregory says that 
"Peter is not called the Universal Apostle " (Petrus 
universalis apostolus non vocatur) . And Ambrose, 
"Between Peter and Paul it is uncertain who was 

79 



80 Romanism in the Light of History 

placed first' ' (Inter Petrum et Paulum, quis cui 
praeponatus, incertum est). 

Bishop Jewel says : 

"St. Peter in the old Fathers is diversely called the 
first, the chief, the top, the high honor of the Apostles; 
and in Eusebius and St. Augustine, rcpoTQYopoq and 
princeps apostolorum. In which last words of Euse- 
bius and St. Augustine, I must do thee, good reader, to 
understand, that princeps is not always taken for a 
prince, or governor endued with power, but oftentimes 
for the first man, or best of a company/ ' 

In the Apologia Ecclesice Anglicana — that 
splendid monument of his learning and ability 
— Bishop Jewel very tersely states the answer 
of the Anglican Church to the extravagant claims 
set up for St. Peter by the Roman theologians. 

" Apostolos, ut Cyprianus " We hold that the Apostles, 

ait, pari omnes inter se fuisse as Cyprian says, were all equal 

potestate; atque hoc idem one with another in power: 

fuisse alios, quod Petrus fuit: that to all alike it was said, 

omnibus ex aequo dictum fuisse, ' Feed ' ; to all alike, ' Go ye into 

Tascite'; omnibus, 'I te in mun- all the world'; to all alike, 

dum universum ' ; omnibus, ' Teach the Gospel ' ; and, as 

1 Docete evangelium ' ; et ut ait Jerome saith, wherever they 

Hieronymus, Omnes episcopos, may be, whether at Rome, or 

ubicunque tandem sint, sive at Eugubium, or at Constan- 

Romae, sive Eugubii, sive Con- tinople, or at Rhegium, they 

stantinopolis, sive Rhegii, are of the same dignity, of the 

ejusdem esse meriti, ejusdem same priesthood." 
sacerdotii. " Works ; vol. iv., 
p. 17. 

The force of the argument from Holy Scripture 
against the claims of the Papacy is felt by many 
Roman Catholic divines. 



" That very late invention that Bishops receive their jurisdic- 
tion from the Popes, and are, as it were, his vicars, should be 
banished from Christian schools as unheard of for twelve cen- 
turies." — Bossuet. 

VIII 

THE PRIMACY ANCIENTLY CONCEDED TO THE 
BISHOP OF ROME 

LET it be clearly understood that we concede 
that the Bishop of Rome was anciently ac- 
knowledged to hold a primacy of honor. Bishop 
Jewel thus states the Anglican view: 

"As for the rest, that the Bishop of Rome had an 
estimation and a credit and a prerogative before 
others, it is not denied. For of the four patriarchs, he 
had the first place, both in Council and out of Council ; 
and therefore the greatest authority and direction of 
matters in all assemblies/ ' 

But two things are made abundantly clear upon 
investigation of the nature of that primacy: 
first, that it was yielded to the Bishop of Rome, 
not because he was supposed to be the successor 
of St. Peter, but because of the imperial dignity 
of the city of Rome, as the Capital of the World ; 
and, second, that this primacy was one of honor, 

81 



82 Romanism in the Light of History 

rather than of power, and did not carry with it 
any concession of universal jurisdiction or supreme 
authority, much less of Papal infallibility. Upon 
these two points Antiquity speaks with no un- 
certain voice. 

Decrees of Councils 

i . The Council of Constantinople thus decreed 
(A.D. 381): 

u T6p /jl4p tol KuvGravTivovirb- "That the Bishop of Con- 

Xews iirta-KOTov Zx €LV Ta irpespeia stantinople have the preroga- 

rijs Tifirjs /xera rbv rijs Pc6/*t/s tive of honor next after the 

iirlffKOTTOv, dia rb elvai avr^v vkav Bishop of Rome; for Con- 

Vwwv" (Canon III.) stantinople is New Rome." 

2. The Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451), the 
largest of the ancient councils, consisting of no 
less than 630 Fathers, decreed equal privileges to 
Constantinople with those hitherto enjoyed by 
Old Rome, at the same time declaring that the 
Primacy had by the Fathers been conceded to 
Rome, " because it was the Imperial City." 

They said : 

"Kal yap tQ Qpbvy ttjs Trpea- "For the Fathers properly 

fivrtpas 'Pifyx^s, did rb pacriXeijeiv gave the Primacy to the throne 

ttjv irbXtv &Kelvqv ol irar^pes of the Elder Rome, because 

eUbrcos diroded^Kao-L t& irpea- that was the imperial city. 

/Seta- Kal Tip &vt$ <tkoit<p kivo<j- And the 150 most religious 

fievoi ol eKarbv irevT'fjKovTa deo- bishops, being moved with the 

<j>L\4<rTaj)oi £irL<rK07Toi t ra T<ra same intention, gave equal 

irpevfieia dirheLfiav t$ ttjs vias privileges to the most holy 

'Pcfywjs ayiwT&T(p 0p6vcp f eti\6- throne of new Rome, judging, 

ym KplvavTes, ttjv paaikda Kal with reason, that the city 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 83 

<rvyK\^T(p TLfirjdeia-ap irSXw, ical which was honored with the 
tCov t<ro)p airokatiovvav irpec^elcav sovereignty and senate, and 
r% Trpeo-fivTipq. j3a<ri\L8i 'Pc^tf, which enjoyed equal privileges 
Kal iv tois 4KK\7]<ria(TTiKois ws with the elder royal Rome, 
€k4ivtjv fieydXiLfvea-dai irpdypao-i, should also be magnified like 
devripav per 1 iKelvyp {nrapxovaav." her in ecclesiastical matters, 
Canon xxviii. being the second after her." 

Canons of first four General 
Councils. Jas. Parker and 
Co., Oxford, 1874, p. 72. 

Pope Leo XIII. declares that this 28th Canon 
is " worthless," because "it lacks the assent and 
approval of the Apostolic See." But the fact 
remains that this great (Ecumenical Council was 
of opinion that the precedency enjoyed by Rome 
was not a divinely given prerogative, but a 
privilege conferred on her by the Council, and 
not because of her Bishop being St. Peter's suc- 
cessor, but because Rome was the Imperial City. 
The Canon moreover was unanimously adopted, 
and has never ceased to be acknowledged as 
authoritative by the whole Eastern Church. And 
further, Pope Leo the Great acknowledged the 
orthodoxy of the Council and warmly praised its 
decisions. How, then, could so great and learned 
and orthodox a Council be in ignorance of the exist- 
ence of the Papal supremacy and of its divine origin ? 

In the Encyclical of the Patriarchs of the Holy 
Eastern Church already quoted, this Canon is 
quoted with the following comment : 

"From this Canon it is manifest that the Bishop of 
Rome is only equal in honor to the Bishop of the 



84 Romanism in the Light of History 

Church of Constantinople, and in no Canon, nor in 
any of the Fathers, is it hinted that the Bishop of 
Rome is alone head of the Church at large, or infallible 
judge of the Bishops of the other independent and 
autocephalous churches, or successor of the Apostle 
Peter and Vicar of Jesus Christ on earth/ ' Ut supra. 

I call attention next to 

The Silence of the Fathers. 

A very able and learned writer makes the 
following assertion: 

"Of all the Fathers who interpret these passages in 
the Gospels (Matt. xvi. 18, John xxi. 17) not a single 
one applies them to the Roman Bishops as Peter's 
successors. How many Fathers have busied them- 
selves with these texts, yet not one of them whose 
commentaries we possess — Origen, Chrysostom, Hi- 
lary, Augustine, Cyril, Theodoret, and those whose 
interpretations are collected in Catenas — has dropped 
the faintest hint that the Primacy of Rome is the 
consequence of the commission and promise to Peter! 
Not one of them has explained the rock or foundation 
on which Christ would build His church or the office 
given to Peter to be transmitted to his successor s." 1 

The same is true of that other passage, St. 
Luke xxii. 32, which the papal apologists allege 
in support of their cause. Our Lord said to 
Peter, foreseeing his denial and downfall, "I have 

1 The Pope and the Council, p. 74. 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 85 

prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not : and when 
thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren." 
This they interpret to be a promise of supreme 
jurisdiction and power to Peter and his successors. 
But "no single writer to the end of the seventh 
century dreamt of such an interpretation; all 
without exception — and there are eighteen of 
them — explained it simply as a prayer of Christ 
that His apostle might not wholly succumb, and 
lose his faith entirely on his approaching trial. 
The first to find in it a promise of privileges to 
the Church of Rome was Pope Agatho in 680/ ' 
Id., p. 75. 

Let the advocates of the papal claims answer 
the following questions: 

1. Why is it that St. Augustine in his contro- 
versy with the Donatists never brought forth 
this mighty weapon of the papal power, if there 
was any such weapon then found in the armory 
of the Church? If union and communion with, 
and subjection to, the Roman See were held then 
to be essential to Catholicity, as Pope Leo now 
affirms, why did this great writer, in treating of 
the Unity of the Church, and in arguing at length 
with the Donatists against their separation from 
the Church, never in all his seventy-five chapters 
say one single word upon the subject? 

2. Why did Pope Pelagius I., praising St. 
Augustine for his services in the cause of Unity, 
make no allusion to any exclusive privilege of the 
See of Rome, but refer rather to "the divine 



86 Romanism in the Light of History 

doctrine which places the foundation of the 
Church in the Apostolical Sees y " and to the fact 
that "they are schismatics who separate them- 
selves from the communion of these Apostolical 
Sees, " viz., Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem? 

3. Why is it that in the treatise of the Ancient 
Fathers upon the hierarchy of the Church, there 
is no mention made of the papal office as the 
highest of all? Even as late as A.D. 631, "the 
famous Spanish theologian Isidore, of Seville, 
describes all the grades of the hierarchy, and 
divides Bishops into four ranks, — Patriarchs, 
Archbishops, Metropolitans, and Bishops, " mak- 
ing no mention of the Pope as distinct from the 
Patriarchs. 

4. Why is it that St. Jerome (Ep. cxxv. 15), 
when enforcing on monks the duty of submission 
to one head "by the instinctive habits of beasts, 
bees, and cranes, the contentions of Esau and 
Jacob, of Romulus and Remus, the oneness of an 
emperor in his dominions, of a judge in his pro- 
vince, of a master in his house, of the pilot in a 
ship, of the general in an army, of the Bishop, 
the archpresbyter, and the archdeacon in a 
Church, " — in the very place where, on the Roman 
theory, we should look for the crown of the argu- 
ment in the one universal Bishop, makes no 
mention of any such head as existing? 1 

5. Why is it that the records of the first four 

1 J. C. Robertson, History of Christian Churchy vol. i., p. 436, 
note. 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 87 

General Councils contain no decree, no canon, no 
recognition in any form of the supremacy of the 
Popes of Rome? Had it been recognized and 
accepted by the Church, is it conceivable that it 
would have left no impress upon the acts and 
proceedings of those great oecumenical assem- 
blages? 

6. Why did the churches of the East pay no 
regard whatever to the acts of excommunication 
issued (severally) by Innocent I. and Felix III. 
in the fifth century? 

7. Why did the General Council of the African 
Churches, A.D.419, decree that if any one should 
appeal from the judgment of the African Bishops 
to Rome he should be excommunicated? 

Positive Patristic Evidence. 

The famous correspondence between Cyprian, 
Bishop of Carthage, Firmilian, Bishop of Csesarea, 
and Stephen, Bishop of Rome, furnishes evidence 
incontestable that the Roman Bishops in that age 
exercised no power or jurisdiction over other 
Bishops; in other words, that the Papacy had not 
then been established. The then Pope, in the 
middle of the third century, began to put forth 
claims of jurisdiction, which were at once indig- 
nantly rejected by his fellow Bishops. Firmilian, 
writing to Cyprian about Stephen, says: "I am 
justly indignant at this so open and manifest folly 
of Stephen, that he who boasts of the place of his 



88 Romanism in the Light of History 

Episcopate, and contends that he holds the suc- 
cession from Peter, on whom the foundations of 
the Church were laid, should be doing as he does." 
The practice of rebaptizing reclaimed heretics 
had been approved by two successive Councils 
at Carthage (A.D. 255, 256). Gieseler says: 

"The latter of these Councils having informed 
Stephen, Bishop of Rome, of their decision in a formal 
letter (Ep. Cyp. 72), received from him a haughty an- 
swer refusing to submit to it. This led to a violent con- 
troversy between Stephen and Cyprian. The former 
broke off all communion with the African Churches, 
but this did not prevent their repeating the former 
decision in the most express terms at a third Council, 
held in Carthage (A.D. 256). Firmilianus, Bishop of 
Caesarea in Cappadocia, assured them (Epist. Cyp. 
75) of the entire assent of the Churches in his pro- 
vince, accompanying his letter with bitter vitupera- 
tions against Stephen, whilst Dionysius, Bishop of 
Alexandria, plainly condemns the course Stephen had 
pursued." (Vol. i., p. 165.) 

Mosheim, commenting upon this, says: "If 
any one after reading the language held by the 
Africans and the Bishops of Rome can still main- 
tain that the Roman prelates in that age had any 
power or jurisdiction over other Bishops, such 
a person must either be beyond measure obsti- 
nate, or vehemently in love with opinions imbibed 
in his childhood." St. Augustine, nearly two 
centuries later, held the Africans justified in 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 89 

rejecting the decision of Pope Stephen, for which 
opinion the great Bishop of Hippo is roundly 
rebuked by Bellarmine (De Eccles., i. 4). 

Archdeacon Sinclair quotes the following from 
a letter addressed by Bishop Firmilian to Pope 
Stephen: " While you think that all may be 
excommunicated by you, you have excommuni- 
cated yourself alone from all." And this from 
St. Cyprian's speech at the Council of Carthage: 
" Neither does any of us set up to be a Bishop of 
Bishops, nor by tyrannical power does any compel 
his colleagues to the necessity of obedience, since 
every Bishop, according to the allowance of his 
liberty and power, has his own proper right of 
judgment and can no more be judged by another, 
than he himself can judge another." 1 Ut supra, 
p. 36. 

St. Jerome. 

The only authority that can be cited among 
the Fathers of the first four centuries on behalf 
of the papal claims (other than the Popes them- 
selves) is that of this powerful and learned man. 
When a young man, he penned a letter to Pope 

1 The papal controversialists vainly seek to break the force of 
Cyprian's testimony above by quoting the letter of that Father to 
Pope Stephanus in the case of Marcianus, Bishop of Aries, but, 
as is pointed out by an eminent R. C. writer, Cyprian did no 
more than write to the Bishop of Rome, " as being his brother and 
colleague, who, by reason of his propinquity, might more easily 
know and judge of the whole matter." See the case fully dis- 
cussed by Barrow, The Pope's Supremacy, pp. 351-353. 



90 Romanism in the Light of History 

Damasus (A.D. 376) in which occurs the following 
passage : 

"As I follow no leader but Christ, so I communicate 
with none but your blessedness — that is, with the 
Chair of Peter. For this I know is the Rock on 
which the Church is built, this the house where alone 
the Paschal Lamb can be rightly eaten. This is the 
Ark of Noah, and he who is not found in it shall 
perish when the flood prevails (Ep. xv)." 

Commenting upon this the Bishop of Man- 
chester says: 

"Amongst all the writings of the Fathers of the first 
four centuries this passage stands absolutely alone. 
It seems to imply that as a heedless young man, St. 
Jerome held that none could be in the Catholic 
Church without holding communion with Rome. 
Much excuse, however, is to be made for its author. 
He had just come from Rome, and had been living 
in the quiet atmosphere of its stately and im- 
movable orthodoxy. All at once he finds himself 
plunged at Antioch into the perplexities of theo- 
logical speculation and the turbulence of party 
strife. . . . Which party should he join? Tor- 
mented by his doubts and difficulties, he determines 
to take part with none of them but to fall back on 
the communion of that Church in which he had 
received baptism. For him assuredly that Church 
was the true Church, and it may well have seemed 
to him in his distress that nowhere else could he find 
the true ark and house of the Paschal Lamb. If he 



Encyclical of Leo XIIL 



9i 



meant more than this by his large and vague phrases, 
it is certain that later in life he changed his opinions." 

In proof of this assertion it is enough to cite his 
language at a period when the Roman claims 
began to be put forward by Pope Innocent I. The 
practice prevailing at Rome had been cited in 
favor of an abuse, whereupon St. Jerome wrote: 



"Et Gallia, et Britannia, et 
Africa, et Persis, et Oriens, 
et India, et omnes barbarae 
nationes unum Christum ador- 
ant: imam observant regulam 
veritatis. Si authoritas quceri- 
tur, orbis major est urbe. 
Ubicunque fuerit Episcopus, 
[sive Romas,] sive Eugubii, 
sive Constantinopoli, [sive Rhe- 
gii,] sive Alexandriae, . . . 
ejusdem meriti, ejusdem est 
sacerdotii. . . . Caeterum 
omnes apostolorum successores 
sunt. . . . Quid mihi profers 
unius nobis consuetudine? " 
Ad Evangelum [iv., pt. 2, pp. 
803]. Jewel, iv., p. 381. 



"Both Gaul, and Britain, 
and Africa, and Persia, and the 
East, and India, and all bar- 
barous nations, adore one 
Christ, observe one rule of 
truth. If you ask for authority , 
the world is greater than a 
city. Wherever there shall 
be a bishop [whether at Rome], 
or at Eugubium, or at Con- 
stantinople [or at Rhegium], 
or at Alexandria, . 
they are of the same dignity, 
of the same priesthood. . . . 
But all are successors of the 
Apostles. . , . Why do you 
bring forward to me the cus- 
tom of one city" — (viz., 
Rome) ? 



The man who wrote these words cannot honestly 
be quoted as an authority for the Papacy. He 
asserts the equality of all Bishops. He refuses 
to admit the claims of one city (Rome) to dominate 
the Universal Church. And elsewhere he affirms 
that the Church is founded equally upon all the 
Apostles. 



92 Romanism in the Light of History 

The History of the First Six General Councils 
Inconsistent with the Roman Claims. 

Observe the following particulars : 

I. Not one of the first six CEcumenical Coun- 
cils of the Church Catholic was summoned by the 
Pope of Rome. 2. One of them, the Council of 
Chalcedon, A.D. 451, was summoned in the face 
of the protest of Pope Leo I. 3. None of them 
was presided over by a Pope, though in one case, the 
2d Council of Constantinople, A.D. 553, the Pope, 
Vigilius, was in the city at the time. 4. The 
decrees of the Council of Nicaea were promulgated 
at once without waiting for the confirmation of 
the Pope. 5. The 5th General Council strongly 
censured Pope Vigilius. 6. The 6th General 
Council (A.D. 680) declared Pope Honorius I. 
a heretic, and anathematized him. (Every succes- 
sive Pope for hundreds of years repeated this 
anathema.) 1 Let any candid man say whether 
these six facts are consistent with the supposed 
recognition at that period, or down to A.D. 680, 
of the Papal supremacy. Contrast with this 
record the story of the Vatican Council of 1870, 
still fresh in our memory. 

1 Father Stafford's reply to my allegation of the heresies of some 
of the Popes is sufficiently naive. He says : " You may call Popes 
heretics, but that does not make them such." But does the 
solemn pronouncement of a General Council "make them such"? 
Do the anathemas of his successors in the Papal chair for 300 
years suffice to declare Pope Honorius a heretic? If Father 
Stafford denies this, he has denied the Vatican faith and is worse 
than a Protestant! 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 93 

Other Conciliar Acts of Similar Significance. 

1. The Churches of the East continued in 
communion with Theophilus, Bishop of Alexan- 
dria, and Atticus, Patriarch of Constantinople, 
notwithstanding the fact that Pope Innocent I. 
had excommunicated them. 

2 . The General Council of the African Churches 
decreed excommunication against any who should 
appeal from the judgment of the African Bishops 
to those beyond the seas, namely, to Rome. 
(A.D. 419.) ' 

3. The Bishops of Africa, in council assembled, 
excommunicated Pope Vigilius, A.D. 548. 

4. The Council sent a letter to Pope Boniface 
I., repudiating his jurisdiction, and condemning 
his course as an unwarrantable assumption of 
authority. This letter bore the signature of St. 
Augustine. 

Will it be pretended, except by brazen-faced 
effrontery itself, that the Bishops, the Churches, 
the Councils who acted thus, recognized the 
supremacy of the Papal Chair? 

Alleged Power of Popes to Confirm or Rescind 
Decrees of Councils. 

But his Holiness Leo XIII. tells the Christian 
world in his Encyclical that "the Popes have ever 
unquestionably exercised the right of ratifying 
or rejecting the decrees of Councils." Let us 
bring this statement to the bar of history. Note 



94 Romanism in the Light of History 

then the following facts: I. Not one of the first 
four General Councils contains any decree, or 
canon, or recognition in any form of any such right. 
2. The decrees of the Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325), 
the most famous and momentous of them all, were 
promulgated at once without any question of 
Papal confirmation. 3. The Council of Chalce- 
don (summoned in spite of the protest of the Pope) 
proposed to bestow, as we have seen, privileges 
on the Bishop of Constantinople equal to those 
enjoyed by the Bishop of Rome, whereupon the 
Pope's legates earnestly resisted and clamored 
against it; but all this had no effect upon the 
Council. The decree was, with general concur- 
rence, adopted and subscribed by the imperial 
Commissioners and all the bishops. 4. Pope 
Leo the Great inveighed fiercely against this 
decree, and used his utmost efforts to prevent 
its taking effect. But all to no purpose; for the 
bishop of Constantinople in all the succeeding 
Councils occupied the place assigned him by 
the said decree, and the Popes were compelled 
finally to acquiesce. 5. General Councils did not 
hesitate to censure, to rebuke, to anathematize, 
to depose Popes, and these acts of theirs became 
effective, certainly without the ratification of the 
Popes in question. 6. Even Provincial Councils 
did not hesitate to excommunicate the Pope, e. g., 
Pope Vigilius by an African Council, A.D. 548. 

What, then, is the ground in history for the 
statements of Pope Leo XIII. ? This and this 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 95 

only: It was the custom of all Councils, with a 
view to giving added weight and authority to their 
decisions, to ask the consent thereto of all Catholic 
bishops who were absent from them; of all, ob- 
serve, and not only of the Bishop of Rome. Thus 
the Emperor Constantine asked the assent of all 
bishops to the Nicene decrees. Thus the Council 
of Sardica wrote to the whole Episcopate: "Do 
ye also, our brethren, and fellow-ministers, the 
more use diligence, as being present in spirit with 
our synod, to yield consent by your subscription, 
that concord may be preserved everywhere by all 
the fellow-ministers." Many examples of similar 
requests for confirmation of the decrees of Councils 
could be given. It goes without saying that the 
assent and confirmation of so eminent and power- 
ful a bishop as the bishop of Rome was most 
earnestly desired and was held of very great 
importance. 

Leo XIII. alleges three instances of Popes 
rescinding the acts of Councils. But the question 
is not what the Popes assumed to do — what power 
they laid claim to — what authority they usurped; 
but what rights and powers they were acknow- 
ledged to possess. Pope Leo the Great undertook 
to rescind the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon, 
as we have seen. He wrote of them: " We make 
{them) void, and by the authority of the blessed 
apostle St. Peter, by a general determination we 
disannul" But the decrees thus disannulled 
by the Bishop of Rome stood and were carried into 



96 Romanism in the Light of History 

effect, as we have seen, and Rome itself was com- 
pelled to acquiesce in them. 

In further illustration of the independence of 
General Councils of the confirmation of their 
decrees by the Pope, let any one read the Letter 
of the Synod of Constantinople (A.D. 381) to the 
Emperor Theodosius the Great. The Fathers 
say: "We pray therefore your clemency, that the 
decree of the Synod may be confirmed, that as you 
have honored the Church by the letters of citation, 
so also you may set your seal to the conclusion 
of what has been decreed. " On Leo XIII.'s 
theory this petition should have been presented not 
to the Emperor but to the Pope. 



" History is neither [Roman] Catholic, nor Anglican, nor Cal- 
vinistic, nor Lutheran, nor Armenian, nor Schismatic, Greek, nor 
Ultramontane. She is what she is." 

IX 
DEVELOPMENT OF THE PAPACY 

THE papal power was gradually developed, and 
it is not difficult to trace the principal steps 
of its development. 

First Step. The influence of the pseudo- 
Clementine Letters and Homilies, a forgery 
probably of the middle of the second century. 
These writings profess to be from the hand of 
Clemens Romanus, who writes to James after the 
death of Peter, and states that the latter shortly 
before his death appointed the writer his successor. 
Here we have the origin of the story, repeated by 
Tertullian, that Clement was ordained bishop 
of Rome by St. Peter. The bishop of Manchester 
is of opinion that "the whole early persuasion 
of St. Peter's Roman Episcopate 'was due' to the 
acceptance in the third and following centuries of 
the Clementine fiction as genuine history. . . . 
No one had any suspicion that the Clementine 
romance was a lie invented by a heretic. The 
story was accepted on all sides/ ' 

With this view coincides the Encyclical Letter 

97 



98 Romanism in the Light of History 

of the Holy Orthodox Church of the East already- 
referred to: " Those absolutistic pretensions of 
Popedom were first manifested in the Pseudo- 
Clementines." 

Second Step. The action of the Council of 
Sardica (A.D. 343) in giving a right of appeal to 
the Bishop of Rome on the part of any bishop 
who considered himself unjustly condemned. 
This led to the consolidation of power in the hands 
of the bishop of Rome, although the decree of 
the Council was not accepted by the Churches of 
Africa or the East. 

Third Step. The decree of the Emperor Valen- 
tinian L, that all ecclesiastical cases arising in 
churches in the Empire should be henceforth 
referred for adjudication to the bishop of Rome. 

Fourth Step. The appeals provided for by the 
Council of Sardica and by the decree of Valen- 
tinian were voluntary appeals ; but Pope Nicolas I., 
in the ninth century, set up the claim that, 
with or without appeal, the bishop of Rome had 
an inherent right to review and decide all cases 
affecting bishops. 

Fifth Step. The forged Isidorian Decretals, 
which pretended to be a series of royal orders, and 
letters of ancient bishops of Rome, represented 
that primitive Christianity recognized in the 
bishops of Rome supreme authority over the 
Church at large. They became a strong buttress 
and bulwark of the vast powers now claimed by 
the Popes in the person of Nicolas I. 



11 To fear history is to own yourself conquered; and moreover, 
if you made the whole of the waters of the Tiber to pass over it, 
you would not cancel a single page." 



THE ISIDORIAN DECRETALS 

THIS huge fabrication arose about the middle 
of the ninth century in Western Gaul. It 
consists of a large number (about one hundred) of 
pretended decrees of about thirty successive Popes 
in the first three centuries, together with certain 
other spurious documents of Councils, and had 
for its object the protection of bishops against 
their Metropolitans, and against the civil authori- 
ties, by magnifying the power of the Pope, and 
throwing it as an aegis around the persons of the 
bishops. Nicolas I., the then Pope, was quick 
to avail himself of these Decretals in support of 
the scheme of papal aggrandizement. Upon 
them was built the novel pretension that the 
decrees of every Council require papal confirma- 
tion, and the further claim that the Pope was 
supreme in matters of faith, since he was the 
universal bishop, all other bishops being his 
servants; and thus the whole system of the 
Church was revolutionized, the original equality 

99 



ioo Romanism in the Light of History 

of power among bishops being abolished, and, 
in its stead, the despotism of the Popes set up. 
"On these Decretals were founded the preten- 
sions of the Popes to universal sway in the Church, 
whilst the pretended Donatio Constantini, a 
fiction of an earlier time, but adopted into them, 
was the first step in their advance to temporal 
power." 1 Their consummate flower appeared 
two centuries later, when Hildebrand (Pope 
Gregory VII.) declared at his Roman Synod: 
"We desire to show the world that we can give 
or take away at our will kingdoms, duchies, earl- 
doms — in a word, the possessions of all men; for 
we can bind and loose/ ' The verdict of the Greek 
patriarchs (already alluded to) is fully justified 
by history: "Those absolutistic pretensions of 
popedom, which were first manifested in the 
Pseudo-Clementines, were matured exactly at 
this time of Nicolas L, in the so-called Pseudo- 
Isidorian Decretals, which are a mass of spurious 
and counterfeit royal orders and letters of ancient 
bishops of Rome, whereby, contrary to historical 
truth, and to the established government of the 
Church, it was purposely put forth that primitive 
Christianity accorded to the bishops of Rome 
unbounded authority over the Church as a whole' ' 
(ut supra, p. ). It remains only to add that 
the divines and scholars of the Roman Church 
now fully admit the spurious and counterfeit 
nature of these Decretals — while clinging tena- 
1 Gieseler. 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 101 

ciously to the principles thus fraudulently foisted 
upon the Church, and to the dogmas which have 
been built upon this foundation of wood, hay, 
and stubble, and not upon the Rock, Jesus Christ 
and His authority. x 

1 Hallam says: "Upon these spurious Decretals was built the 
great fabric of Papal supremacy over the different national 
churches, a fabric which has stood after its foundation crumbled 
beneath it; for no one has pretended to deny, during the last 
two centuries, that the imposture is too palpable for any but the 
most ignorant ages to credit. " 



XI 

IRENiEUS, BISHOP OF LYONS (ob. A.D. 202) 

A passage from this writer is sometimes quoted 
in support of the Roman claims. It is 
found in the third book of Irenaeus Against 
Heresies (chapter iii.), of which only the Latin 
version has come down to us, the original (Greek) 
having perished. He has been refuting the 
Gnostics by an appeal to Holy Scripture, and also 
to the " tradition which originates from the 
Apostles/ ' which, he says, was committed to the 
Churches " throughout the whole world." He 
proceeds as follows: 

11 Since, however, it would be very tedious to reckon 
up the successions of all the churches, we do put to 
confusion all those who . . . assemble in unauthor- 
ized meetings by indicating that tradition derived 
from the Apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, 
and universally known Church, founded and organized 
at Rome by the two most glorious Apostles, Peter and 
Paul." 

Then follows the sentence in which it is alleged 
that Irenaeus maintained that it was "a matter 
of necessity that every church should agree with 

102 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 103 

this Church, on account of its pre-eminent author- 
ity. 1 ' That, however, is a mistranslation of his 
words. I give in the Latin the crucial clause, 
with a translation from a candid Roman Catholic 
writer of the whole sentence: 

"Ad hanc enim ecclesiam, propter potiorem prin- 
cipalitatem, necesse est omnem con venire ecclesiam." 
"For to this Church, on account of more potent 
principality, it is necessary that every church resort; 
in which church ever by those who are on every side 
has been preserved that tradition which is from the 
Apostles. " (Berington and Kirk, vol. i., p. 252. 
Quoted by Bishop Coxe. See Ante-Nicene Fathers, 
1885, vol. i., p. 415.) 

Thus it appears that Irenaeus cites the Roman 
Church, because, since on account of its being 
seated at the capital of the world, the faithful 
from all parts of the world must needs resort 
thither, in it the universal tradition of the apostles 
would best be preserved. The Roman Church, 
being the Metropolitan Church, thus caught and 
focalized the rays of testimony concerning apos- 
tolic tradition from the churches all over the 
world. Doubtless this was true when Irenaeus 
wrote within, say, sixty or seventy-five years of 
the apostolic age. It would be less and less true 
as time elapsed, and ancient oral tradition became 
dimmed or adulterated. 

How far Irenaeus was from recognizing any 
dogma of Papal Infallibility may be seen from 



104 Romanism in the Light of History 

the fact that he did not hesitate to rebuke Eleu- 
therius, Bishop of Rome, for his Montanist heresy, 
and later to remonstrate with Victor, another 
Bishop of Rome, for disturbing the peace of the 
Church. 

Moreover Irenaeus did not recognize St. Peter 
as first Bishop of Rome. He has left us, in his 
third book against Heresies, Chap, iii., a list of the 
Bishops of Rome, which differs in this vital point 
with the Roman list. 



Irenaus: 


The Roman Almanack 


I . Linus. 


1. St. Peter. 


2. Anacletus. 


2. St. Linus. 


3. Clement. 


3. St. Anacletus. 


4. Evaristus. 


4. St. Clement. 


&c. 


&c. 



XII 

ST. CYPRIAN ON THE EQUALITY OF BISHOPS 

BUT the authority of Cyprian is appealed to in 
behalf of the Roman claim that the Church 
is built upon Peter and that there can be no unity 
except through the Chair of Peter. Father Stafford 
in his second reply to my Letter to Leo XIII. quotes 
at length a passage from this Father in support of 
that position. But he has quoted (innocently, no 
doubt) from a vitiated and interpolated copy. 

"Cyprian [says the late Bishop Coxe] has been doc- 
tored in order to bring him into shape capable of being 
misinterpreted. But you will say, Where is the proof 
of such interpolations? The greatly celebrated Bene- 
dictine Edition reads as the interpolated column does, 
and who would not credit Baluzius? Now note, 
Baluzius refuted these interpolations and others; but 
dying (A.D. 1718) with his work unfinished, the com- 
pletion of the task was assigned to a nameless monk, 
who confessed that he corrupted the work of Balu- 
zius, or rather glories in the exploit." — Ante-Nicene 
Fathers, vol. v., p. 558. 

I give in parallel columns, first, the true render- 
ing of the passage, next, the original with interpo- 

105 



io6 Romanism in the Light of History 



lations indicated, and place in a note the quotation 
as Father Stafford cites it : 



"The Lord speaks to Peter, 
saying, 'I say unto thee that 
thou art Peter; and upon this 
rock will I build My Church, 
and the gates of hell shall not 
prevail against it. And I will 
give unto thee the keys of the 
kingdom of heaven; and what- 
soever thou shalt bind on earth, 
shall be bound also in heaven, 
and whatsoever thou shalt loose 
on earth, shall be loosed in 
heaven.' And again to the 
same He says, after His resur- 
rection, ' Feed My sheep/ And 
although to all the apostles 
after His resurrection, He gives 
an equal power and says, 'As 
the Father hath sent Me, even 
so I send you; receive ye the 
Holy Ghost; whosesoever sins 
ye remit, they shall be remitted 
unto him; and whosesoever sins 
ye retain, they shall be re- 
tained; yet, that He might set 
forth unity, He arranged, by 
His authority, the origin of 
that unity as beginning from 
one. Assuredly the rest of 
the apostles were also the same 
as was Peter, endowed with a 
like partnership both of honor 
and power; but the beginning 
proceeds from unity. . . . 
Does he who does not hold 



" Loquitur Dominus ad Pet- 
rum Ego tibi dico, inquit, quia 
tu es Petrus, et super hanc 
petram cedificabo ecclesiam 
meant, et portce infer or um non 
vincent earn. Et tibi dabo claves 
regni cozlorum; et qua ligaveris 
super tenant, erunt ligata et in 
ccelis; et qucecunque solveris 
super tenant, erunt soluta et in 
ccelis, Et iterum eidem post 
resurrectionem suam dicit, 
Pasce oves meas. [Super ilium 
unum aedificat ecclesiam suam, 
& illi pascendas mandat oves 
suas.] 1 Et quamvis apostolis 
omnibus post resurrectionem 
suam parem potestatem trib- 
uat & dicat, sicut misit me pater 
et ego mitto vos,accipite Spiri- 
tum sanctum, si cujus remiseri- 
tis peccata, remittentur illi, si 
cujus tenueritis, tenebuntur t 
tamen ut unitatem manifes- 
taret, unitatis ejusdem origi- 
nem ab uno incipientem sua 
auctoritate disposuit. Hoc 
erant utique et caeteri apostoli 
quod f uit Petrus, pari consortio 
praediti & honoris & potestatis, 
sed exordium ab unitate pro- 
ficiscitur. . . . Hanc ecclesiae 
unitatem qui non tenet, tenere 
se fidem credit? Qui ecclesiae 
renititur & resistit, [qui cathe- 



x The passages above placed in brackets are interpolations. 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 107 

this unity of the Church think dram Petri, super quern fun- 
that he holds the faith? Does data est ecclesia, deserit,] in 
he who strives against and ecclesia se esse confidit?" 2 
resists the Church, trust that — Cypriani opera. Paris 1726, 
he is in the Church? " x pp. 194-5. 

These interpolations, so cleverly introduced, 
completely reverse the teaching of Cyprian, and 
make him in this passage contradict his other 
writings, and, what is more, the whole tenor of 
his life and conduct, especially in the famous case 
of his controversy with Pope Stephen, referred to 
above. One must scrutinize very closely quota- 
tions from the ancient Fathers in the pages of 
Roman Catholic controversialists. It is by no 

1 See the passage and interpolations quoted by Gieseler, vol. 
i., p. 154, note. 

2 Father Stafford quotes as follows: [Upon him {Peter) alone 
He built His Churchy and ordered him to feed his sheep], and alto- 
gether after his resurrection, He gave similar powers to all the 
apostles. Nevertheless that He might manifest unity, [He 
established one chair,] and by His authority disposed that the 
origin of that unity should be derived from one. The other 
apostles were certainly that which Peter was, united in an equal 
society of honor and power. But the beginning takes its course 
from unity. [The Primacy is given to Peter that the Church may be 
shown one and the chair one. They are all shepherds but the flock 
is shown to be one, which is fed with unanimous consent by all the 
apostles.] Does he believe that he holds faith, who does not 
hold to this unity of the Church? Does he believe that he is in 
the Church who withstands and resists the Church [who deserts 
the chair of Peter, upon which the Church is founded]! St. Cyp., 
De Un. Ec. 

N. B. — All the passages italicized and bracketed by me are 
interpolations. The first and third of these do not appear in the 
Paris edition of 1726, from which I copy the quotation in the text 
above. 



108 Romanism in the Light of History 

means uncommon to find doubtful, spurious, or 
forged writings of the Fathers quoted as genuine. ■ 
This is not surprising when one remembers the 
history of the spurious Clementines and the forged 
Isidorian Decretals, both of which played such 
an important part in the development of the 
Papacy — indeed, constituted its chief support in 
antiquity — which were at the time believed to be 
genuine, but which are now acknowledged to have 
been forgeries by all well-informed Roman con- 
troversialists. One recalls also the French New 
Testament, printed at Bordeaux in 1686 (a copy 
of which can be seen in the British Museum), put 
forth with archiepiscopal approval, in which are 
to be found such audacious alterations of Holy 
Scripture as the following : 1 Cor. iii. 1 5 is rendered, 
"He himself shall be saved, yet in all cases as 
by the fire of Purgatory 11 ; and 1 Tim. iv. 1 is ren- 
dered, "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly that 
in the latter days some will separate themselves 
from the Roman faith/ ' 

It has been pointed out that had Cyprian held 
the Roman view of the Hierarchy, he must have 
maintained, first, that the power of the keys had 
been given to Peter; second, that to the rest of 
the Apostles he gave an inferior and subordinate 
authority; third, that the See of Rome has inherited 
the Petrine supremacy over all other Sees and 
churches; fourth, that the Unity of the Church 

1 See illustrations of this quoted by Littledale, Plain Reasons, 
etc., pp. 130-137. 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 109 

can only be maintained by preserving this suprem- 
acy of the Roman See; and, finally, that Stephen, 
Bishop of Rome, was supreme above all other 
Bishops, and that, were all the Apostles but Peter 
then alive, they would be subject to him. But 
what Cyprian did actually maintain in his treatise 
on the Unity of the Church was (1) that the 
Apostle Peter received the first grant of the power 
of the keys, so that the origin of the Church was 
in him, but (2) that afterwards the very same 
honor and power were conferred upon the rest of 
the Apostles; (3) that all Bishops, as successors 
of the Apostles, had coequal power and authority; 
and (4) that Stephen, Bishop of Rome, had no 
dominion over his brother Bishops of other Sees. * 
Cyprian's maxim, "Ecclesia in Episcopo," 
then, has no affinity with the maxim on which 
the Church of Rome stands to-day, " Ecclesia 
in Papa"; but is radically and irreconcilably 
opposed to it. The Constitutional Primacy which 
he conceded to the Bishop of Rome had nothing 
in common with the Absolutism which in late ages 
was built up upon the foundation of the spurious 
Isidorian Decrees. 2 It may be difficult to be 

1 See Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. v., pp. 557-8. 

a Gieseler, writing of the Ante-Nicene period says: "Great 
stress was laid on the perfect equality of all Bishops, and each in 
his own diocese was answerable only to God and his conscience. 
Nor were they likely to allow any peculiar authority to the 
Successor of Peter, inasmuch as they attributed to Peter no 
superiority over the other Apostles. In the West, indeed, a 
certain regard was paid to the Church of Rome as the largest, and 



no Romanism in the Light of History 

absolutely sure of the true reading of the passage 
cited above, but whatever the reading we must 
interpret it in the light of the known views of 
this Father elsewhere stated. Of two possible 
interpretations of his language, we must prefer 
that which is in harmony with, not that which 
contradicts, his general system. If Cyprian had 
written, "The primacy is given to Peter' ' (Prima- 
tus Petro datur), we would have to enquire what 
kind of primacy did he mean? And the following 
among many passages, would suffice to show that 
he did not dream of such a primacy as Rome 
claims to-day : 

14 Neither did Peter, whom the Lord chose to be first, 
and upon whom he built His Church, when he after- 
wards disputed with Paul concerning circumcision, 
claim or assume anything arrogantly or insolently, as 
to say that he held the primacy and ought to be obeyed 
by those who were new (in the faith) and by those 
who came after him." 

the only one in that region founded by an apostle; but by no 
means were any peculiar rights conceded to it over the other 
churches. ... As all the bishops were supposed to be of like 
dignity and power, . . . they maintained their common right 
to interfere in any case where a bishop had transgressed the 
established rules of the Church. " (I. 153-155.) See the copious 
citations given by Gieseler in support of these conclusions. 

Cyprian uniformly addresses Pope Cornelius and Pope Stephen 
as equals, using the terms j rater and collega. He does not hesitate 
to reprimand and reprove them. In the affair of the Spanish 
bishops Basilides and Martialis (A.D. 256) in which Cyprian was 
called upon to mediate, he " rejected the decision of the bishop of 
Rome in their favor. " 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. in 

(Nee Petrus, quern prirnum Dominus elegit, et super 
quern aedificavit ecclesiam suam, cum secum Paulus 
de circumcisione postmodum disceptaret, vindicavit 
sibi aliquid insolenter aut arroganter assumpsit, ut 
diceret se primatum tenere, et obtemperari a novellis 
et posteris sibi oportere.) Epist. 71. 



XIII 

WITNESS OF THE GREEK CHURCH TO THE INDE- 
PENDENCE OF NATIONAL CHURCHES 

THE following passage from the Encyclical 
already several times quoted exhibits the 
complete harmony of the Greek Church with the 
Anglican as to the independence of national 
churches in the early Christian centuries : 

XVI. Each autocephalous church, both in the 
East and the West, was, during the ages of the Seven 
(Ecumenical Councils, entirely independent and self- 
governing. And as the bishops of the autocepha- 
lous Eastern Churches, so also those of Africa, Spain, 
Gaul, Germany, and Britain, administered their 
churches by means of their own local synods; the 
bishop of Rome possessing no right of interference, 
since he also was amenable and obedient to synodical 
decisions. But in case of weighty questions, which 
required the sanction of the entire Church, recourse 
was had to an (Ecumenical Council, which alone was, 
and still is, the high tribunal of the Church, as a whole. 
The bishops were independent of each other and 
entirely free within their own boundaries, being sub- 
ject only to synodical ordinances, and taking their 
seats in such synods as equals; and no one of them 

112 



Encyclical of Leo XIIL 113 

ever laid claim to sovereign rights over the whole 
Church. But if certain ambitious bishops of Rome 
raised at times overbearing pretensions to an abso- 
lutism foreign to the traditions of the Church, they 
were duly refuted and reprimanded. It is proved, 
therefore, inaccurate and manifestly erroneous, that 
which his Beatitude Leo XIIL avers in his encyclical, 
namely, that prior to the time of Photius the name of 
the See of Rome was holy unto all the nations of the 
Christian world, and that the East as well as the West, 
with one accord and without opposition, submitted 
to the Roman high priest, as successor of the apostle 
Peter and consequently as vicar of Jesus Christ upon 
earth. 

XVII. During the nine centuries of the (Ecumeni- 
cal Councils the Eastern Orthodox Church never 
recognized the unswerving pretensions to supremacy 
put forward by the bishop of Rome, nor did she ever 
submit to them, as the history of the Church testifies. 
The independent relations between East and West are 
clearly and manifestly evident from the following 
brief but noteworthy sentences of Basil the Great, in 
his letter to Eusebius among the saints, bishop of 
Samosota: " Verily, it is the nature of a haughty 
disposition, if indulged, to exceed itself in haugh- 
tiness. For if the Lord is gracious unto us, what 
need have we of other aid? But if the wrath of 
God continues, who will help us against the super- 
ciliousness of the West (those men) who neither know 
the truth nor will admit of learning it, but, having 
preconceived false suspicions, do not those things 
which they did before in the matter of Marcellus?" 
Later again, towards the close of the ninth century, 
Photius, that sacred and luminous hierarch, when 



ii4 Romanism in the Light of History 

defending the independence of the Church of Con- 
stantinople, foresaw the perversion of the polity of the 
Church in the West and its disposition to forsake the 
orthodoxy of the East, and assayed to avert the danger 
by conciliatory means at first. But the bishop of 
Rome, Nicholas I., by intervening in the East, beyond 
his own province and contrary to the canons, and by 
attempting to. subjugate to himself the Church of 
Constantinople, brought about the first stage of the 
grievous dissension of the Churches. Those absolutis- 
tic pretensions of popedom, which were first mani- 
fested in the Pseudo-Clementines, were matured 
exactly at the time of Nicholas in the so-called Pseudo- 
Isidorian Decretals, which are a mass of spurious and 
counterfeit royal orders and letters of ancient bishops 
of Rome, whereby, contrary to historical truth and to 
the established government of the Church, it was 
purposely put forth that primitive Christianity 
accorded to the bishops of Rome unbounded authority 
over the Church as a whole. 



XIV 

THE CHURCH OF ROME AND HOLY SCRIPTURE 

THE Church of Rome has made Tradition an 
authority co-ordinate with and equal to 
Holy Scripture (see the Decrees of the Council of 
Trent); and then she has decreed that Scripture 
shall be interpreted in accordance with Tradition, 
and has constituted the Church {i. e., since 1870 
the Pope) the infallible interpreter of Scripture, 
the result of which process is to really reduce 
God's Holy Word to a subordinate and sec- 
ondary position, so that its teaching counts for 
little in establishing matters of faith, or in 
testing dogmatic truth. It is not surprising, 
therefore, to find that the Scriptural argument 
against the alleged Privilege of Peter and his 
alleged successors (see my Letter) has not been 
even alluded to by my critics. Yet it is decisive 
and unanswerable, and for all who reverence 
the sacred oracles of God ought to be an end 
of the Papal Controversy. The following passage 
from the pen of Cardinal Wiseman affords an 
instructive illustration of the attitude of the 
Church of Rome towards the Bible: 

115 



n6 Romanism in the Light of History 

"The history in every case is simply this: that the 
individual, by some chance or other . . . happened 
to become possessed of the Word of God and of the 
Bible; that he perused this Book, that he could not 
find in it Transubstantiation; that he could not find 
in it Auricular Confession; that he could not find in 
it one word of Purgatory ; nothing in it of worshipping 
images. He perhaps goes to the priest; he tells him 
that he cannot find these doctrines : his priest argues 
with him, and endeavors to convince him that he 
should shut up the Book that is leading him astray: 
he perseveres; he abandons the Communion of the 
Church of Rome — that is, as it is commonly ex- 
pressed, the errors of that Church — and becomes a 
Protestant. Now in all that the man was a Protest- 
ant before he began his enquiry : he started with the 
principle that whatever is not in that book is not 
correct — that is the principle of Protestantism. He 
took for granted Protestantism, therefore, before he 
began to examine the (Roman) Catholic Religion. 
He sets out with the supposition that whatever is 
not in the Bible is no part of God's truth ; he does 
not find certain things in the Bible; he concludes, 
therefore, that the religion that holds these is not 
the true religion of Christ. Ml 

This is a candid avowal on the part of an emi- 
nent prince of the church, and a noted contro- 
versialist, that neither Transubstantiation, nor 
Auricular Confession, nor Purgatory, nor Worship- 
ping of Images is found in the Bible. 

1 Lectures on the Doctrines and Practices of the Roman Catholic 
Churchy 1836, p. 12. 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 



117 



I wish now to invite attention very briefly to 
the inconsistency of the Church of Rome in regard 
to the use of the Bible in the vernacular tongue 
by the lay people, using parallel columns to 
exhibit it more clearly to the eye. 



Cardinal Gibbons : 

"God forbid that any of my 
readers should be tempted to 
conclude, from what I have 
said, that the Catholic Church 
is opposed to the reading of the 
Scriptures. ... If you open 
an English Catholic Bible you 
will find in the preface a letter 
from Pope Pius VI., in which 
he strongly recommends the 
pious reading of the Holy 
Scriptures. A Pope's letter is 
the most weighty authority in 
the Church. You will also 
find in Haydock's Bible the 
letters of the Bishops of the 
United States in which they 
express the hope that this 
splendid edition would have a 
wide circulation among their 
flocks. " — The Faith of our 
Fathers, pp. 109, ill. 



Index of Prohibited Books 
{approved by Pius IV.) 

"Since it is manifest by 
experience that, if the Holy 
Bible in the vulgar tongue be 
suffered to be read everywhere 
without distinction, more evil 
than good arises, let the judg- 
ment of the Bishop or inquisi- 
tor be abided by in this respect; 
so that . . . they may grant 
permission to read translations 
of the Scriptures, made by 
Catholic writers, to those whom 
they understand to be able to 
receive no harm . . . from 
such reading. But whosoever 
shall presume to read these 
Bibles, or have them in posses- 
sion without such faculty, 
shall not be capable of receiving 
absolution of their sins, unless 
they have first given up the 
Bibles to the Ordinary." 
(Fourth Rule of the Congre- 
gation of the Index.) 



Clement XI., in the Bull Unigenitus (A.D. 1713), 
condemned as "false" and " blasphemous' ' the 
following propositions : 



n8 Romanism in the Light of History 

" It is useful and necessary at all times, in all places, 
and for all kinds of people, to study and learn the 
spirit, holiness, and mysteries of the Sacred 
Scripture." 

"The reading of Holy Scripture is for all. " 

"The Lord's Day ought to be hallowed by Chris- 
tians with pious reading, and above all, of Holy 
Scripture. It is dangerous to attempt dissuading 
Christians from this reading. " 

"To forbid Christians the reading of Holy Scripture, 
especially of the Gospel, is to forbid the use of light 
to the children of light, and make them undergo a 
kind of excommunication." 1 

x Quoted by Dr. Littledale, Plain Reasons, etc., pp. 90, 91. 



XV 



POPE GREGORY THE GREAT ON THE TITLE " UNI- 
VERSAL BISHOP." 



FOLLOWING are the originals of the passages 
quoted from this Father in the Open Letter: 

"Tu quid Christo universalis ecclesise capiti in 
extremi judicii dicturus examine, qui cuncta ejus 
membra tibimet coneris universalis appelatione sup- 
ponere? Quis, rogo, in hoc tarn perverso vocabulo nisi 
ille ad imitandum proponitur, qui despectis angelorum 
legionibus secum socialiter constitutis ad culmen 
conatus est singularitatis erumpere, ut et nulli sub- 
esse, et solus omnibus prasesse videretur ? " (Gregory, 
Ep. iv. 38.) 

"Ego autem fidenter dico, quia quisquis se uni- 
versalem sacerdotem vocat, vel vocari desiderat, in 
elatione sua Antichristum praecurrit, quia superbiendo 
se cseteris praeponit." {Id., lib. vi., Ep. 30.) 

In further elucidation of Pope Gregory the 
Great's indignant condemnation of this assump- 
tion of a universal Episcopate residing in the 
Bishop of Rome and his successors, I append 
several other passages, out of many available. 

119 



120 Romanism in the Light of History 



He exhausts the vocabulary in his vigorous char- 
acterization of the obnoxious phrase, " Universal 
Bishop/ ' He calls it in one place nomen err oris; in 
another, stultum ac superbum vocabulum; in another, 
nefandum vocabulum; in yet another, scelestum 
vocabulum; and, finally, nomen blasphemies. 

To the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch, 
St. Gregory writes: 



"This name Universal was 
offered during the Council of 
Chalcedon 1 to the Pontiff of 
the Apostolic See. . . . But 
no one of my predecessors ever 
consented to use so profane a 
title; because if one is called 
Universal Patriarch, the name 
of Patriarch is taken away 
from the rest. But far be it 
from the mind of a Christian 
to be willing in anywise to 
seize for himself that whereby 
he may appear in any degree 
whatsoever to diminish the 
honor of his brethren. " 



" Per Sanctam Chalcedonen- 
sam Synodum Pontifici sedis 
apostolicae. . . . hoc universi- 
tatis nomen oblatum est. Sed 
nullus umquam decessorum 
meorum hoc tarn profano 
vocabulo uti consensit: quia 
videlicet si unus Patriarcha 
Universalis dicitur, Patriar- 
charum nomen caeteris dero- 
gatur. Sed absit hoc, absit a 
Christiani mente id sibi velle 
quempiam ampere, unde fra- 
trum suorum honorem im- 
minuere ex quantulacumque 
parte videatur . ' ' — G r e g o r i i 
Opera, Tom II. Epist. Lib. 
v., 43, P. 771. Paris, 1705. 



Again, to the Patriarch of Alexandria, he writes: 



"You are my brother in 
rank, my father in character. 
I did not, therefore, command, 
but took pains to suggest the 
things which seemed useful. 



"Loco enim mihi fratres 
estis, moribus patres. Non 
ergo jussi, sed quae utilia visa 
sunt, indicare curavi. . . . 
Dixi, nee mihi vos, nee cui- 



1 Not by the Council itself, nor with its authority, but by cer- 
tain private individuals. Father Stafford is in error in asserting 
the contrary. 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 



121 



... "I said that you were 
not to write any such thing to 
me or to any one else; and 
behold in the very heading of 
the letter which you addressed 
to me, the very person who 
forbade it, you took care to 
set that haughty title, calling 
me Universal Bishop (Pope) 
which I beg your most gracious 
holiness not to do to me again. 
. . . For if your holiness 
calls me the Universal Bishop, 
you deny that you yourself 
are that which you confess me 
to be over the whole world. 
But far be such a thought. " 

In yet another letter of his we meet with the 
following : 



quam alteri tale aliquid scri- 
bere debere; et ecce in prae- 
fatione Epistolae quam ad me 
ipsum, qui prohibui, direxistis, 
superbae appellationis verbum 
Universalem me Papam dicen- 
tes, imprimere curastis. Quod 
peto dulcissima mihi Sanctitas 
vestra ultra non faciat. . . . 
Si enim Universalem mePapam 
vestra Sanctitas dicit, negat 
se hoc esse quod me fatitur 
universum. Sed absit hoc. ' ' — 
Id., Epist. Liber viii., 30, p. 
919. 



"As to that title of supersti- 
tion and pride, I have studi- 
ously admonished him, saying 
that he could not have peace 
with us unless he corrected the 
haughtiness of the foremen- 
tioned word, which the first 
apostate invented. You, how- 
ever, ought not to say that 
that case is of no consequence, 
because if we bear this with 
equanimity we corrupt the 
faith of the Universal Church. 
... If one bishop is called 
universal (bishop) the whole 
church crumbles in ruin; if 
one (bishop) falls the whole 
(Episcopate) falls; but far 
from us be this folly, far from 
my ears be this levity. " 



"De eodem supers titioso et 
superbo vocabulo cum ad- 
monere studui, dicens, quia 
pacem nobiscum habere non 
posset, nivsi elationem praedicti 
verbi corrigeret, quam primus 
apostata invenit. Vos tamen 
eamdem causam, nullam esse 
dicere non debetis; quia si 
hanc aequanimiter portamus, 
Universal Ecclesiae fidem cor- 
rumpimus. ... Si unus 
Episcopus vocatur universalis 
universa ecclesia corruit; si 
unus, universus episcopatus, 
cadit; sed absit haec stultitia, 
absit haec levitas ab auribus 
meis." — Lib. vii., Ep. 27, 
p. 873. 



122 Romanism in the Light of History 

Writing to the Emperor Maurice, St. Gregory 
thus speaks of St. Peter: 

"He is not called Universal "Universalis Apostolus non 

Apostle, yet this most holy vocatur, et vir sanctissimus 

man, my colleague in the consacerdos meus Johannes 

priesthood, John [of Constan- vocari universalis Episcopus 

tinople] aspires to the title conatur. Exclamare compel- 

Universal Bishop. I am com- lor ac dicere, tempora, 

pelled to cry out and say, mores ! . . . Absit a cordibus 

tempora, mores! . . . Far Christianis nomen istud blas- 

from Christian hearts be that phemiae, in quo omnium Sacer- 

name of blasphemy, by which dotum honor adimitur, dum ab 

the honor of the whole priest- uno sibi dementer arrogatur." 

hood is compromised, while it is — Id. v. 20, pp. 748, 749. 
insanely arrogated to himself 
by one." 

Surely it is a lame and impotent explanation 
of the vehement and unqualified condemnation 
of the title Universal Bishop by Gregory, to say, 
as one of my critics does, that it was u because it 
was offensive, and it was offensive because it was 
high sounding, and had been assumed by the 
Eastern patriarch out of human pride, and in a 
sense injurious to other Bishops/ ' 

Gregory condemned the very thing which was 
subsequently consummated by Hildebrand and 
which is maintained and practised by the Pope to- 
day, the subjection of other Bishops to the Bishop 
of Rome. 

The following passage from another letter of 
this great and humble-minded Pope still further 
declares his mind upon this subject, making it 
incontrovertibly clear that his objection to the 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 



123 



title " Universal Bishop' ' antedated the effort of 
John of Constantinople to arrogate it to himself, 
and lay against the title in itself, and not merely 
in its accidental association with the ambition 
of that Patriarch. Had Gregory held the modern 
Roman doctrine of the sovereignty of the Papacy, 
he would have replied (just as most certainly Pope 
Leo XIII. would reply to the Archbishop of 
Baltimore if he were to assume that title), that he, 
Gregory, Bishop of Rome, was the Universal 
Bishop, and that John was a rebel and a usurper 
in daring to assume it. 



11 It is true that for the honor 
of the blessed Prince of the 
apostles (this title) was offered, 
during the venerable Council of 
Chalcedon, to the Roman 
Pontiff. But none of those 
(pontiffs) ever consented to 
use this unique title, lest — 
while something exclusive were 
given to one, all should be 
deprived of the due honor of 
the priesthood. What is this 
then — we do not want the 
glory of this title even when 
offered, yet another presumes 
to seize it though it is not 
offered!" 



"Certe pro beati Apostolorum 
principis honore, per veneran- 
dam Chalcedonensem Syno- 
dum Romanum Pontifice 
oblatum est. Sed nullus 
eorum umquam hoc singu- 
laritas nomine uti consensit, 
ne dum privatum aliquid da- 
retur uni, honore debito sa- 
cerdotis privarentur universi. 
Quid est ergo, quod nos hujus 
vocabuli gloriam et oblatam 
non quaerimus, et alter sibi 
hanc arripere et non oblatam 
praesumit!" — Id., Lib. v. 20, p. 
749. 



XVI 

THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION 

A LEARNED Anglican writer remarks upon the 
fact that in the opinion of some present- 
day Roman theologians the Pope has never but 
once spoken "with the formalities necessary to 
make his utterance ex cathedra and infallibly 
binding, and that was when Pius IX., on Decem- 
ber 8, 1854, decreed the Immaculate Conception 
of the Blessed Virgin Mary." In my Open Letter 
to Pope Leo it is stated that this doctrine "is 
explicitly or implicitly denied by several of the 
greatest of the Fathers, as St. Augustine and St. 
Bernard, and by the greatest of Roman Catholic 
divines, St. Thos. Aquinas, as well as by several 
of the Popes themselves." 

I proceed to justify this statement by quota- 
tions from the writers named: 

St. Augustine: 

"Etenim, ut celerius dicam, "For, to sum up in a word, 

Maria ex Adam, mortua prop- Mary, sprung from Adam, died 

ter peccatum (Adam mortuus because of sin (Adam died 

propter peccatum), et caro because of sin), and the flesh 

Domini ex Maria mortua est of our Lord sprung from Mary 

propter delenda peccata. " — died in order to blot out sin. M 
Sermo Secundus. De reliqua 
parte Psalm xxxiv., 3. 

124 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 125 

And the following, quoted by Archdeacon 
Sinclair: 

"He alone being man, but remaining God, never 
had any sin, nor did He take on Him a flesh of sin, 
though from the flesh of sin of His Mother. For what 
flesh He thence took, He either, when taken, im- 
mediately purified, or purified in the act of taking it." 
(Bened. Ed., Paris, 1630 — p. 61.) 

St. Bernard (A.D. 1140) blames the Canons of 
Lyons for the innovation of celebrating the Feast 
of the Conception, then denies that it should be 
held, because "the Conception was not holy, like 
theNativity. ,, 

"I greatly marvel that . . . some of you should 
have thought good to change this excellent hue, by 
introducing a new festival which the ritual of the 
Church knows not of, reason approves not, ancient 
tradition recommends not. Are w r e more learned or 
more devout than the Fathers? . . . The royal 
virgin needeth not false honour. . . . Beyond all 
doubt, the mother of the Lord, too, was holy before 
she was born. . . . What should w r e think is to be 
added yet to these honours? They say that 'the 
conception, which w T ent before the honoured birth, 
should be honoured, because had not that preceded, 
this which is honoured had not been/ What if 
another for the same reason should assert that festive 
honours should be paid to both her parents also?" 
Ep. 174, ad Canon. Lugd. Opp. 1, 169 seq. Quoted by 
Dr. Pusey, First Letter to Dr. Newman, pp. 171, 174. 



126 Romanism in the Light of History 

St. Thomas Aquinas: 

The following passages sufficiently exhibit his 
doctrine on this subject: 



Surnma, Part III. Quaes. 
XVI. Art. III. "Adprimam 
ergo dicendum, quod caro 
Virginis concepta fuit in origi- 
nali peccato, et ideo hos de- 
fectus contraxit. Sed caro 
Christi naturam ex virgine 
assumpsit absque culpa." 

Id. Quajstio XXVII. Art. 
I. Utrum beata virgo, mater 
Dei, fuerit sanctificata ante 
nativitatem ex utero. . . . 

Ad tertium dicendum, quod 
beata virgo sanctificata in 
utero a peccato originali, quan- 
tum at maculam personalem, 
non tamen fuit liberata a 
reatu quo tota natura tene- 
batur obnoxia, ut scilicet non 
intraret in Paradisum nisi 
per Christi ostium. 



"As to the first, then, it is to 
be said that the flesh of the 
Virgin was conceived in origi- 
nal sin, and therefore it con- 
tracted these defects. But 
the flesh of Christ took its 
nature from the Virgin with- 
out fault." 

"Whether the Blessed Vir- 
gin, the Mother of God, was 
sanctified before her birth 
from the womb. . . . 

"As to the third it is to be 
said that the Blessed Virgin 
sanctified in the womb from 
original sin, as to personal 
taint, was nevertheless not 
delivered from the guilt where- 
by all nature was held at- 
tainted, so that, indeed, she 
did not enter into Paradise 
save through the gate of 
Christ." 



(He compares the cases of Jeremiah and John 
Baptist as parallel.) 



Id. Art. IV. "In beata vir- 
gine post sanctificationem in 
utero, remansit quidem fomes 
peccati, sed ligatus ni scilicet 
prorumperet in aliquem motum 
inordinatum. " 



"In the blessed virgin after 
sanctification in the womb, 
there remained a certain kin- 
dling material of sin, but res- 
trained from breaking forth 
into any inordinate motion. " 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 127 

Cardinal de Turrecremata, a famous theologian, 
having been appointed by the Council of Basle to 
investigate the history of this doctrine, made 
report as follows: 

" Behold, O Sacred Synod, one hundred witnesses, 
who, being most profound Doctors in Divine and Canon 
Law, or very learned Fathers, give a most clear tes- 
timony . . . that the most Blessed Virgin was in her 
conception subject to original sin/ ' — Pusey, Letter I. 
to Dr. Newman, p. 72. 

Testimony of the Popes. 

Of the fourteen Popes who are said to have pro- 
nounced against the immaculate conception of the 
Blessed Virgin, I quote the following from Dr. Pusey : 

Pope Leo I. Serm. 5, De Nat. Dom. C. 5, p. 86., 
" Alone then among the sons of men the Lord Jesus 
was born innocent, because He alone was born without 
the pollution of carnal concupiscence. " 

Pope Gelasius, against Pelagius, says: "No one is 
clean from defilement." p. 130. 

Gregory the Great: "He alone was born truly holy 
who . . . was not conceived by the commixture of 
carnal intercourse.' ' p. 142. 

Pope Innocent III. says: "Mary was produced in 
sin, but she brought forth without sin." Serm. 2 
"De Festo Assump. Mariae," Colon., 1552 (quoted by 
Archdeacon Sinclair). 

In the light of these passages it is impossible 
to avoid the dilemma of rejecting either the creed 
of Pius IV. (which binds every Catholic never to 



128 Romanism in the Light of History 

take or interpret the Scriptures "otherwise than 
according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers") 
or the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of 
the Blessed Virgin. 

With Pope Leo L, Pope Gelasius, Pope Gregory 
the Great, and Pope Innocent III. denying this 
doctrine, and Pope Pius IX. affirming and defining 
it as an article of faith — it must be hard for the ad- 
herent of the doctrine of Papal Infallibility to know 
what to believe. When Infallibility is arrayed 
against Infallibility, who shall be the arbiter ? 

It may be interesting to compare the opinion 
recently expressed by some of the highest repre- 
sentatives of the Greek Church upon this subject, 
in their reply to the Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII. 
on Reunion. Art. XIII. of that document 
(already quoted) reads as follows: 

"The one Holy Catholic and Apostolical Church of 
the Seven (Ecumenical Councils has laid down the 
dogma of the supernatural, pure and immaculate 
incarnation of the only begotten Son and Word of 
God alone, by the Holy Ghost and through the Virgin 
Mary. But the papal church has again introduced 
an innovation, scarcely forty years ago, having pro- 
pounded the novel dogma of the immaculate con- 
ception of the Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary — a 
dogma entirely unknown to the Ancient Church, and 
strenuously combated, in former times, by the most 
eminent of papal theologians. " 1 

1 Reply of the Holy Catholic and Orthodox Church of the East 
to the Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII. on Reunion. London: John 
& E. Bumpus, Oxford St. 



" History cannot be made over again. It is there, and will re- 
main, to all eternity, to protest energetically against the dogma of 
the Papal Infallibility." 

" Deus solus est infallibilis."— • Abp. Kenrick. 

XVII 

THE DOGMA OF PAPAL INFALLIBILITY 

IT is well known that the adoption of this dogma 
by the Vatican Council was strenuously 
opposed by many of the most illustrious and 
learned Prelates and Scholars of the Roman 
Communion, among others by the following: 
Darboy, Archbishop of Paris (afterwards mar- 
tyred in the Commune); Dupanloup, Bishop 
of Orleans; Rauscher, Cardinal Archbishop of 
Vienna; SchwarzenbeRG, Cardinal Archbishop 
of Prague; Scherr, Archbishop of Munich; 
Hefele, Bishop of Rottenburg; Strossmayer, 
Bishop of Bosnia; MacHale, Archbishop of 
Tuam; Conolly, Archbishop of Halifax; Kenrick, 
Archbishop of St. Louis; Dollinger, the emi- 
nent historian and theologian, and John Henry 
Newman. 

But no weight of learning or eloquence or 
character could avail against the determination 
of the Jesuits, that lt aggressive and insolent 

129 



130 Romanism in the Light of History 

faction," as Newman called them, to force the 
dogma upon the Church. The Council which 
proclaimed it was in no sense oecumenical. It 
was, in the first place, a Council of the Roman 
Communion alone; and it was not truly represen- 
tative even of that section of the Church Catholic, 
for the Council was packed with Italians and 
others whose votes could be depended on. Italy 
had 276 delegates, while France, with a much 
larger Catholic population had only eighty-four, 
Germany nineteen, and the United States forty- 
eight. 

Neither was the Vatican Council free. Liberal 
Catholics severely censured this feature. "More 
than one hundred Prelates of all nations signed a 
protest (dated Rome, March 1, 1870) against the 
order of business, especially against the mere 
majority vote, and expressed the fear that in the 
end the authority of this Council might be im- 
paired as wanting in truth and liberty." 1 

The Decree of Papal Infallibility was passed 
on the 1 8th July, 1870. It is as follows: 

" Itaque Nos traditioni a fidei Christianas exordio 
perceptae fideliter inhaerendo, ad Dei Salvatoris nostri 
gloriam, religionis Catholicae exalt ationem et Chris- 
tianorum populorum salutem, sacro approbante Con- 
cilio, docemus et divinitus revelatum dogma esse 
declaramus : romanum pontificem, cum ex cathedra 

LOQUITUR, ID EST, CUM OMNIUM CHRISTIANORUM PAS- 

1 See SchafE, Creeds of Christendom, vol. i., p. 144. 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 131 

TORIS ET DOCTORIS MUNERE FUNGENS PRO SUPREMA 
SUA APOSTOLICA AUCTORITATE DOCTRINAM DE FIDE 
VEL MORIBUS AB UNIVERSA ECCLESIA TENENDAM 
DEFINIT, PER ASSISTENTIAM DIVINAM, IPSI IN BEATO 
PETRO PROMISSAM, EA INFALLIBILITATE POLLERE, QUA 
DIVINUS REDEMPTOR ECCLESIAM SUAM IN DEFINIENDA 
DOCTRINA DE FIDE VEL MORIBUS INSTRUCTAM ESSE 
VOLUIT; IDEOQUE EJUSMODI ROMANI PONTIFICIS DE- 
FINITIONES EX SESE, NON AUTEM EX CONSENSU 
ECCLESLE, IRREFORMABILES ESSE. 

Si quis autem huic Nostras definitioni contradicere, 
quod Deus avertat, praesumpserit ; anathema sit. 1 " 

It is thus translated : 

" Therefore, faithfully adhering to the tradition re- 
ceived from the beginning of the Christian Faith, for 
the glory of God our Saviour, the exaltation of the 
Catholic religion, and the salvation of Christian peo- 
ple, the sacred Council approving, we teach and define 
that it is a dogma divinely revealed: that the Roman 
Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra — that is, when in 
discharge of the office of pastor and doctor of all 
Christians, by virtue of his supreme apostolic author- 
ity, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to 
be held by the universal Church, by the Divine as- 
sistance promised to him in blessed Peter, — is pos- 
sessed of that infallibility with which the Divine 
Redeemer willed that His Church should be endowed 
for defining doctrine regarding faith or morals; and 
that, therefore, such definitions of the Roman Pontiff 
are irreformable of themselves and not from the con- 
sent of the Church. But if any one — which, may 

1 Id., p. 151. 



132 Romanism in the Light of History 

God avert — presume to contradict this our definition, 
let him be anathema/ ' 

Now, when this dogma is brought to the im- 
partial bar of history, it completely breaks down. 
No wonder that John Henry Newman was so sad 
at heart in the anticipation of its promulgation. 
He wrote to Bishop Ullathorne : 

"I look with anxiety at the prospect of having to 
defend decisions which may not be difficult to my 
own private judgment, but may be most difficult 
to maintain logically in the face of historical facts, 
Think [he continues] of the store of pontifical scandals 
in the history of eighteen centuries, which have partly 
been poured forth, and partly are still to come. . . . 
If it is God's will that the Pope's infallibility be de- 
fined, then is it God's will to throw back the times 
and moments of that triumph which He has destined 
for His Kingdom, and I shall feel I have but to bow 
my head to his adorable, inscrutable Providence." 1 

What history has to say to this new dogma 
has been already intimated on a preceding page. 
In truth the whole weight of the preceding argu- 
ment bears conclusively against the truth of 
this novel dogma. The (Ecumenical Councils, 
the Ancient Fathers, and many of the Popes 
themselves, as well as the Holy Scriptures, stand 
forth as incorruptible witnesses against it. It has 
none of the three notes of Catholicity, — neither the 

x Five years later Dr. Newman retracted this (confidential) 
letter. 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 133 

semper j nor the ubigue, nor the ab omnibus. The 
Canon Law of the Middle Ages, while placing the 
Pope above all secular tribunals, yet laid down 
that he could be judged and deposed for heresy 
(deprehendatur a fide devius). Even Innocent 
III. (thirteenth century), spite of his boundless 
claims to secular and spiritual power, acknow- 
ledged that he might sin against the faith and 
become subject to the judgment of the Church. 
Innocent IV. expressed himself in the same sense. 
Of Boniface VIII. (fourteenth century) it was 
said that he had a devil, because he declared that 
every creature must obey the Pope on pain of 
eternal damnation. And Hadrian VI., before 
he became Pope, said that it was certain the Pope 
could err even in matters of faith. 

As to concrete examples of the fallibility of the 
Pope, even when speaking ex cathedrd, scholars, 
Roman Catholic as well as Protestant, have 
supplied us with enough to convince any one 
whose mind is not closed against conviction. 

Two Popes of the third century, Zephyrinus 
and Callistus, were guilty of heresy in relation to 
the person of our Lord, according to the testi- 
mony of Hippolytus, saint and martyr. 1 

Pope Liberius (A.D. 358) (whose case has been 
referred to above) subscribed an Arian Creed and 
condemned Athanasius, the great champion of 
the Divinity of Christ. 

1 See the Search-Light of St. Hyppolytus, Revell & Co., 1896, for 
vindication of the authenticity of his works. 



134 Romanism in the Light of History 

Pope Zosimus gave the stamp of orthodoxy to 
the Pelagian heresy, but afterwards, under pres- 
sure from St. Augustine, reversed his decision. 

Pope Vigilius (538-555), having been repudi- 
ated by the fifth (Ecumenical Council, made his 
submission to the Council and confessed that he 
had been the tool of Satan. 

Pope Honorius I. (625-638) taught ex cathedrd 
the Monothelite heresy, and was excommunicated 
as a heretic by an (Ecumenical Council — uni- 
versally acknowledged both in the East and in the 
West — which assembled in Constantinople in 
680. Their anathema was repeated by the 
seventh and eighth (Ecumenical Councils. And 
finally the succeeding Popes for three hundred 
years pronounced "an eternal anathema' ' on 
Pope Honorius, thus recognizing both the justice 
of his condemnation and also the principle that a 
general Council may condemn a Pope for heresy. * 

All attempts to escape the iron grasp of the facts 
of history in this crucial instance of the break- 
down of the theory of Papal Infallibility have 
failed conspicuously. 

It seemed to many devout children of the 
Church an evil omen that "the Episcopal votes 
and the Papal proclamation of the new dogma 
were accompanied by flashes of lightning and 
claps of thunder from the skies, and so great was 
the darkness which spread over the Church of 
St. Peter, that the Pope could not read the decree 

1 See Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, vol. i., pp. 176, 179. 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 135 

of his own Infallibility without the artificial light 
of a candle/ ' There was an apprehension of 
calamities impending over the Papacy. 

11 And behold the day after the proclamation of the 
dogma Napoleon III., the political ally and supporter 
of Pius IX., unchained the furies of war, which, in a 
few weeks, swept away the Empire of France and 
the temporal throne of the infallible Pope. His own 
subjects forsook him and almost unanimously voted 
for a new sovereign, whom he had excommunicated as 
the worst enemy of the Church. A German Empire 
arose from victorious battlefields, and Protestantism 
sprung to the political and military leadership of Eu- 
rope. About half a dozen Protestant Churches have 
since been organized in Rome, where none was toler- 
ated before, except outside the walls or in the house of 
some foreign ambassador; a branch of the Bible So- 
ciety was established, which the Pope, in his Syllabus, 
denounces as a pest, and a public debate was held in 
which even the presence of Peter in Rome was called 
in question. History records no more striking exam- 
ple of swift retribution of criminal ambition. IM 

Lord Acton thus records the opinions of the 
minority in the Vatican Council: 

" When the observations which the Bishops had sent 
in to the Commission appeared in print, it seemed that 
the minority had burnt their ships. They affirmed 
that the dogma would put an end to the conver- 
sion of Protestants, that it would drive devout men 
out of the Church and make Catholicism indefen- 

*Id. 9 pp. 159-160. 



136 Romanism in the Light of History 

sible in controversy, that it would give governments 
apparent reason to doubt the fidelity of Catholics, 
and would give new authority to the theory of per- 
secution and of the deposing power. They testified 
that it was unknown in many parts of the Church, 
and was denied by the Fathers, so that neither per- 
petuity nor universality could be pleaded in its 
favor; and they declared it an absurd contradiction, 
founded on ignoble deceit, and incapable of being 
made an article of faith by Pope or Council. One 
Bishop protested that he would die rather than 
proclaim it. Another thought it would be an act of 
suicide for the Church." — Article on "The Vatican 
Council, "North British Review, Oct., 1870, pp. 225-6. 

There were 750 Bishops in the Council, of whom 
85 voted against the Decree. In the minority 
were found the ablest, the most learned, and the 
most eloquent of the Bishops, including such men 
as Rauscher, Schwarzenberg, Hefele, Kett- 
ler, Kenrick, Conolly, Darboy, Strossmayer. 
See the Appendix for a powerful speech attributed 
to Bp. Strossmayer. 



XVIII 

PAPAL INFALLIBILITY AN IGNIS FATUUS 

IT has been pointed out in the "Open Letter' ' 
(p- 57) that the dogma of Infallibility holds 
out delusive hopes to those who submit to it in 
the expectation of thereby securing absolute 
certainty of religious belief. In illustration of 
this statement, reference has been made to 
the difference of opinion among even learned 
Roman Catholics as to the extent of the 
Pope's Infallibility. Previous to 1870 no man 
could tell where the vaunted gift of Infalli- 
bility resided. "It resides in the Pope, " said 
some of their divines. "No, not in the Pope," 
said others, "but in the Church at large (a 
diffusive power or virtue).' ' "By no means," 
exclaimed a third party, "it belongs to General 
Councils without the Pope." "You are all 
wrong," said a fourth school; "Infallibility resides 
in a General Council, with the Pope at its 
head." 

But now since the Vatican Council has spoken, 
the uncertainty is at an end, and it must be con- 
fessed by every good Catholic that the Pope is 
personally infallible when he speaks ex cathedrd. 

137 



138 Romanism in the Light of History 

Is there, then, peace at last, — and unanim- 
ity, — after so many centuries of conflict, upon 
the very first question of their whole^ system? 
Alas, no! for the question now is, When does 
the Pope speak ex cathedra? Who is to de- 
cide? And until such decision is authoritatively 
given, how can we be sure that we have 
really grasped the certainty that is built upon 
Infallibility? 

For example, let us suppose a devout Roman 
Catholic takes up for perusal the famous Syllabus 
of Pius IX. (1864). This document contains a 
catalogue of eighty errors of the age which are 
formally condemned by Pius IX. Is this, then, 
an ex cathedrd pronouncement and therefore 
infallible? Cardinal Manning (as pointed out in 
the Open Letter) stoutly affirms that it is part 
of "the infallible teaching' ' of the Pope; but 
Cardinal Newman supports the contrary opinion. 
Which is right? Who is to decide? Each 
man for himself? Then, indeed, Infallibility rests 
upon private judgment — which good Roman 
Catholics have thrown away as a broken reed. 
Or is each man's Confessor to decide for 
him? In that case, Infallibility rests still upon 
private judgment — that of a priest instead of a 
layman. 

Meanwhile what grave issues are left suspended 
in mid-air for the devout son of Mother Church. 
If Manning was right, then religious and civil 
liberty — which American prelates never tire of 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 139 

applauding on public occasions — is a detestable 
error which, as a good Roman Catholic, he is 
bound to reject and abhor. If Newman was right, 
then he may say Amen to the panegyrics just 
alluded to with a good conscience. If Manning 
was right, then the separation of Church and State 
has been condemned by Infallible authority, and 
the absolute independence of the Roman hierarchy 
of all civil government infallibly asserted. If 
Manning was right, then our devout Roman 
Catholic may not be hopeful concerning the 
eternal salvation of his non-Roman-Catholic 
friends, on pain of resisting the decision of the 
Infallible Papal Tribunal. In short, the old un- 
certainty as to where Infallibility reposed has 
simply given place to uncertainty in a new form: 
when is this Infallible voice heard? And how 
may it be recognized? On this question certainty 
is unattainable — and the Roman Catholic is no 
better off than his poor Protestant neighbor, 
who builds his faith on the Infallible voice that 
speaks in Holy Scripture. 

In one of the popular controversial works 
upon which Roman Catholics greatly rely {The 
Faith of our Fathers, by Cardinal Gibbons), the 
following argument is employed, and the poor 
Protestant is shown that his " Infallible Bible' ' 
is of no use whatever without an infallible inter- 
preter. I will place in a parallel column the 
Cardinal's argument turned against his own 
doctrine: 



140 Romanism in the Light of History 



The Cardinal to the Pro- 
testant : 

" Let us see, sir, whether an 
infallible Bible is sufficient for 
you. Either you are infallibly 
certain that your interpreta- 
tion of that Bible is correct, or 
you are not. 



" If you are infallibly certain, 
then you assert for yourself, 
and, of course, for every 
reader of the Scripture, a 
personal infallibility which you 
deny to the Pope, and which 
we claim only for him. You 
make every man his own Pope. 

"If you are not infallibly 
certain that you understand 
the true meaning of the whole 
Bible — and this is a privilege 
you do not claim — then, I ask, 
of what use to you is the ob- 
jective infallibility of the Bible, 
without an infallible Inter- 
preter?" (p. 155.) 



The Protestant to the 
Roman Catholic: 

"Let us see, my friend, 
whether an Infallible Pope is 
sufficient for you. Either you 
are infallibly certain that your 
interpretation of the meaning 
and extent of the dogma of 
infallibility is correct, or you 
are not. 

11 If you are infallibly cer- 
tain, then you assert for your- 
self, and, of course, for every 
Roman Catholic, a personal 
infallibility. You make every 
Roman Catholic his own Pope. 



"If you are not infallibly 
certain that you understand 
the scope and meaning of the 
dogma of infallibility — and 
how can you make such a 
claim, when the great scholars 
and princes of the Church 
differ about it so widely — 
then, I ask, of what use to you 
is the dogma of infallibility 
without an infallible Inter- 
preter of its scope and intent? " 



The logical dilemma is a dangerous bull, for 
he will sometimes turn and gore his own master! 

Take another case. Suppose a devout and 
obedient member of the Roman Communion 
desirous of knowing whether the principles of 
liberty as embodied in that famous instrument, 



Encyclical of Leo XIIL 141 

the Magna Charta, are in harmony with his faith 
and with his church. He hears on every hand in 
America words of approval and praise for free 
institutions, and naturally concludes that his 
church is in sympathy with popular liberty as 
embodied in the great English and American 
political instruments. But suppose he chances to 
read the history of the reign of King John, and so 
learns that Pope Innocent III. sent his commis- 
sioners to England to declare the Magna Charta 
null and void and to restrain King John from 
giving it effect. Suppose he reads further and finds 
that when Stephen Langton, the then Archbishop 
of Canterbury, refused to execute this Bull, and 
stood forth as the champion of the rights and liber- 
ties of the people of England against the despotism 
of King John, the Pope suspended him from his 
archiepiscopal office, and drove him into exile. 

Or suppose a mother loses her infant child. It 
has been baptized and therefore perhaps she feels 
confident of its salvation, but some one calls her 
attention to the positive, dogmatic, deliverance of 
Pope Innocent I. and Pope Gelasius I. in the fifth 
century, declaring that infants dying without re- 
ceiving the Holy Communion are undoubtedly 
damned. True, the Council of Trent, with a 
Pope at its head (A.D. 1564), condemned and 
anathematized this monstrous doctrine; but how 
is she, poor woman, to tell which was the true 
definition? Both were Papal, and therefore both 
infallible, though contradictory. 



142 Romanism in the Light of History 

Or suppose the question be about valid Baptism. 
A dying child has been baptized by a woman, 
but in the name of Christ alone. Was that 
sufficient? Pope Nicholas, in the ninth century, 
gave his decision that such a Baptism is valid; 
but Pope Pelagius, in the sixth century, had de- 
cided that no Baptism was valid unless adminis- 
tered in the name of the Father, and of the Son, 
and of the Holy Ghost. 

Or one has a dear friend, or a beloved relative, 
who is a Protestant. May he hope for the final 
salvation of such an one? He will get contra- 
dictory answers from different priests, and in 
different countries. Often in America he will 
be encouraged to hope for it, but it has not 
been long since an eminent ecclesiastic publicly 
asserted the contrary. And one of the Popes 
(Boniface VIII.), whose decision must have 
been infallible, declared, ex cathedra, that "for 
every human creature it is altogether necessary 
to salvation to be subject to the Roman 
Pontiff." 

Or the question pertains to marriage: Is the 
marriage tie broken, if one of the two (husband or 
wife) becomes a pervert to heresy? Pope Celes- 
tine III. pronounced the marriage tie broken in such 
a case. Subsequent Popes have given contrary 
decisions. Which is the true? 

Or a man wishes to know whether he may fight 
a duel? It was authorized by Pope Pascal II. 
and Pope Eugenius III. Is it therefore right? 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 143 

Or must he obey the decisions of subsequent 
Popes, who have forbidden it? 

What an ignis fatuus, then, is this dogma of the 
Infallibility of the Pope, and how vain is the hope 
that, in submitting to it, men secure absolute 
certainty of belief! No sooner had it been pro- 
mulgated, than the line of cleavage began to 
develop between the "maximizers" like Ward 
and Manning, and the "minimizers" like John 
Henry Newman. This same wide difference of 
interpretation prevails in the Roman Communion 
in regard to various doctrines and practices of 
their faith. 

Take one example out of many, the cultus of 
the Blessed Virgin. Here, verily, we have the 
maximizers and the minimizers — those who make 
a goddess of the Virgin, and give her the wor- 
ship which is due to God alone, and those who only 
honor her, and ask her intercession, but do not 
worship her. The apologists of the Church of 
Rome are usually found among the "minimizers. ,, 
Their controversial works reduce this cultus to 
the minimum, and indignantly deny that any 
good Roman Catholic ever pays Divine honors 
to the Blessed Virgin. That, they say, is a Pro- 
testant invention, or misrepresentation. They 
give douleia to the Virgin, not latreia. 

But let a candid observer take note of the 
popular religion in Mexico, in South America, in 
Ireland, in Spain, and on the Continent generally 
(especially among the peasantry), and he will 



144 Romanism in the Light of History 

find it hard to resist the conclusion that the 
Blessed Virgin is worshipped with latreia as God 
is worshipped, and that her worship has largely- 
taken the place of the worship of Christ. 

But let us turn from the ignorant and su- 
perstitious multitude, who, it may be said, per- 
vert and misapply the Churches doctrine, and 
let us consult the Doctors of theology. In 
a work entitled Protestantism and Infidelity, 
by Francis Xavier Weninger, D.D., " Mis- 
sionary of the Society of Jesus, " I find the 
following example of the doctrine of the min- 
imizers. I place in a parallel column that of the 
maximizers. 



The Teaching of the Mini- The Doctrine of the Maxi- 
mizers. mizers. 



14 Protestant misrepresenta- 
tion is particularly directed 
against our veneration of the 
Blessed Virgin Mary, the 
Mother of God. You have 
been taught that we adore 
her. It is an unfounded 
calumny like the rest. Our 
doctrine is to-day what it was 
in the beginning of Christianity 
and has been in all ages since. 
We teach to-day what St. 
Epiphanius taught in opposi- 
tion to the heretics of the 
fourth century: 'We honor 
Mary; but the Father, Son, 



"Heart of Mary, Mother of 
God, . . . worthy of all the 
veneration of angels and men, 
... Be thou our help in 
need, our comfort in trouble, 
our strength in temptation . . . 
our aid in all dangers. . . . 
Leave me not, my Mother, in 
my own hands, or I am lost. 
Let me but cling to thee. Save 
me, my Hope; save me from 
Hell." 1 

"I adore you, Eternal 
Father; I adore you, Eternal 
Son; I adore you, Most Holy 
Spirit; I adore you, Most Holy 



1 From the " Raccolta, " a collection of Prayers indulgenced by 
the Pope. 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 145 

and Holy Ghost alone we Virgin, Queen of the Heavens, 
adore." ' Lady and Mistress of the 

Universe." 1 

" We have made a goddess of 
the Blessed Virgin." 2 

She is "the complement of 
the Whole Trinity." 3 

"Notre-Dame de Chartres, 
notre secours pendant la vie 
et a Theure de notre mort." 
— Litanies de Notre-Dame de 
Chartres (1885). 

As regards the hollowness of the alleged unity 
and harmony of the Roman Communion, no better 
illustration could be given than is found in the 
picture of the life of the Roman hierarchy in 
England, so vividly drawn by Mr. Purcell in his 
life of Cardinal Manning. It is a tissue of con- 
troversies and jealousies, of mining and counter- 
mining, between the different parties in the Roman 
Communion. The members of the hierarchy 
are seen in continual conflict and intrigue. They 
agree neither in opinions nor in policies, — and 
first one, then another, of the bishops hies him 
to Rome, hoping to undermine the influence and 
credit of his brother prelate with the Holy Father. 
It is a mournful spectacle of the absence of "the 
unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace," Mr. 
Purcell remarks that "second only to his belief 
in the Infallibility of the Pope . . . was Manning's 

1 From a Prayer published under license at Rome in 1825. 

2 Bp. Strossmayer, alleged speech in the Vatican Council. 

3 Salazar. 



146 Romanism in the Light of History 

belief in the duty of keeping up at every hazard 
the appearance of unity of opinion among Catholics." 
But the intestine strife could not be wholly con- 
cealed, and this remarkable book has drawn aside 
the veil and shown us the bitterness and divisions 
and mutual distrust that prevail in the Roman 
Communion. In a letter to Mgr. Talbot, Man- 
ning wrote, in i860, " Thank God the Protestants 
do not know that half our time and strength is 
wasted in contests inter domesticos fidei" (Life, 
p. 101.) So bitter was the strife that Manning 
and his friend did not hesitate, in their confidential 
correspondence, to speak of the great Newman 
as "the most dangerous man in England," and to 
express alarm at the danger of "an English 
Catholicism." Cardinal Manning felt himself 
and his party of Ultramontanes far more widely 
separated from Newman and his "English Catho- 
lics" than these latter were from Dr. Pusey. 
"Between us and them," he writes to his con- 
fidential friend, Talbot, "there is a far greater 
distance than between them and Dr. Pusey's 
book." 

This story of division and conflict finds its 
counterpart in the annals of the Roman Church 
in the United States a generation later. The 
secret history of the internecine strife which is 
still going on in the bosom of the Roman Catholic 
Communion in America has not yet been revealed ; 
but enough has transpired from time to time, as 
for example in connection with the recent removal 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 147 

of the accomplished Rector of their University at 
Washington, Dr. Keane, to show that the old feud 
between the Ultramontanes and the Liberals is 
not healed. 

So vain is the boast of unity of Spirit and 
identity of belief among Roman Catholics. Be- 
hind the veil they are as far from unity, and from 
oneness of doctrine, as their Protestant fellow- 
Christians. The Vatican decree has not secured 
solidarity of belief or of policy. 



XIX 



CONCLUSION. 



THE task which I set myself in the preparation 
of this little volume is done. The Vener- 
able Pontiff in his Encyclical appealed to History 
— sacred and ecclesiastical — in support of the 
tremendous claims which, as Infallible Pope, he 
makes upon the whole Christian world. We have 
willingly taken the great controversy before that 
august tribunal; and we have obtained a verdict 
against the vast pretensions of the Papacy. 
Inspired History pronounces against them. The 
History of the early Councils of the Catholic 
Church pronounces against them. The History 
of the ancient Fathers (their lives and their 
writings) pronounces against them. " History 
cannot be made over again. It is there, and will 
remain to all eternity, to protest energetically 
against the dogma of Papal Infallibility/ p 

It only remains to add in conclusion that no 
word in the preceding pages has been penned in 
bitterness or in uncharitableness. We respect 
the sincerity of our Roman Catholic brethren, 
we acknowledge the piety and devotion that 
shine in the lives of great numbers of them. We 

148 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 149 

recognize the vast services they are rendering to 
mankind in many ways; and we fervently wish 
that we might be co-laborers for the Kingdom 
of God and of righteousness rather than antago- 
nists — fellow-soldiers under the banner of the 
Cross against ungodliness, infidelity, and vice in 
this great Republic, rather than opponents. 

But when an ecclesiastical absolutism like the 
Papacy is set up, and we are called upon to sur- 
render our liberties and our rights in the Kingdom 
of God, and to repudiate the heritage of Apostolic 
truth and order which we have received from our 
fathers and which came to them as an heirloom 
from primitive antiquity, our loyalty to the King 
of Kings demands that we should expose the 
hollowness of these pretensions in the impartial 
light of history, and unveil the absurdities, the 
inconsistencies, and the self-contradictions which 
are inseparably bound up with the dogma of 
Papal Infallibility, and Papal Dominion over the 
faith of the Church. It is in this spirit, and under 
this high sense of duty to the Great Head of the 
Church, that I have written. At His feet I lay 
the fruit of my labor, and pray that He may 
accept the offering and use it for the enlighten- 
ment of His children. 



APPENDIX TO LEO XIII. 

rHE Alleged Speech of Bishop Strossmayer in the 
Vatican Council of 1870 against the Dogma of 
Papal Infallibility. 

The following passages are taken from a transla- 
tion of an Italian version of an alleged speech of 
the eloquent Bishop Strossmayer who so coura- 
geously and eloquently opposed the dogma of Papal 
Infallibility. It was published in Florence under the 
title of The Pope and the Gospel, and appeared in 
English in the Baltimore American of August 3, 1871. 

The Tablet of London, August 8, 1874, a Roman 
Catholic organ, states that in 1873 (two years later), 
Bishop Salford, visiting Rome, showed Bishop Stross- 
mayer a copy of a speech, alleged to have been 
delivered by him in the Vatican Council, and sub- 
sequently widely circulated in England ; and that the 
Bishop declared that it was not authentic — that it 
was in fact a forgery. (Whether that English ver- 
sion was the same as the one printed in the Baltimore 
American I have not been able to ascertain.) 

Two things, however, are certain: first, that Bishop 
Strossmayer was the most powerful and outspoken 
opponent of the Dogma of Papal Infallibility, and 
that he delivered in the Vatican Council a speech 
that so enraged the Papal partisans that he was 
repeatedly interrupted by loud cries and execrations 
and by the ringing of the President's bell. On one 

150 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 151 

of these occasions they cried " Shame! Shame ! M 
" Down with the heretic! " and refused to allow him to 
proceed. Of this an account is given in the October 
number of the North British Review, 1870, in an 
article on "The Vatican Council,' ' from the pen of 
that great Roman Catholic scholar, Lord Acton, who 
gives two passages from Bishop Strossmayer's speech. 
In one of these he says, " future generations will say 
that this Council lacked both liberty and truth," 
"huic Concilio libertatem et veritatem defuisse." 

The other thing which cannot be controverted is 
that the alleged speech presents a very powerful argu- 
ment from Scripture and from History against Papal 
Infallibility. It is wortlty of the Bishop's great 
reputation for logic, for eloquence and for courage. 
" You terrify me with your pitiless logic, " was the ex- 
clamation of one who, like many others, " gloried in 
the grace and the splendor of his eloquence" ; and one 
cannot but ask, if Strossmayer did not compose this 
oration, where was the man who was capable of such 
a composition — unless our eyes turn to the Arch- 
bishop of Halifax, the Archbishop of St. Louis, or the 
Bishop of Grenoble, — and who would accuse such men 
of a forgery? But, whoever composed this speech, 
there it stands, irrefragable in argument, powerful 
in appeal; and I quote it, not because it fell from 
the lips of Strossmayer (whether it did, or not, is a 
question I am content to leave undetermined), but 
because its learning is unimpeachable, its logic un- 
answerable. It is noteworthy also for the uncom- 
promising clearness with which it appeals to Scrip- 
ture as the foundation of the Faith, — a feature in 
which it agrees in a striking manner with a speech 
undoubtedly delivered by Archbishop Conolly of 



152 Romanism in the Light of History 

Halifax, in which he repudiated all dogmas not 
distinctly founded on the recorded word of God. 
"Verbum Dei volo et hoc solum, quaero et quidem 
indubitatum, sit dogma fiet." 

"St. Cyril in his fourth book on the Trinity says, 
1 1 believe that by the rock you must understand the 
unshaken faith of the Apostles.' St. Hilary, Bishop of 
Poitiers, in his second book on the Trinity, says, 'The 
rock (petra) is the blessed and only rock of the faith 
confessed by the mouth of St. Peter' ; and in the sixth 
book of the Trinity he says, ' It is on this rock of the 
confession of faith that the Church is built/ 'God/ 
says St. Jerome, in the 6th book on St. Matthew, 'has 
founded His Church on this rock, and it is from this 
rock that the Apostle Peter has been named.' After 
him St. Chrysostom says, in his 53d homily on St. 
Matthew, ' On this rock I will build my Church — that 
is, on the faith of the confession.' Now what was 
the confession of the Apostle? Here it is, 'Thou art 
the Christ, the Son of the Living God.' Ambrose, the 
holy Archbishop of Milan, on the 2d chapter of the 
Ephesians, St. Basil of Seleucia, and the Fathers of 
the Council of Chalcedon teach exactly the same thing. 
Of all the Doctors of antiquity, St. Augustine occupies 
one of the first places in knowledge and holiness. 
Listen, then, to what he writes in his second treatise 
on the First Epistle of St. John: 'What do the words 
mean, I will build my Church on this rock? On this 
faith, on that which thou hast said, Thou art the Christ 
— the Son of the Living God.' In his 124th treatise 
on St. John, we find this most significant phrase : ' On 
this rock, which thou hast confessed, I will build 
my Church, since Christ was the Rock.' The great 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 153 

bishop believes so little that the Church was built on 
St. Peter, that he said to his people in his ioth Sermon, 
1 Thou art Peter, and on this rock (petra) which thou 
hast confessed — on this rock which thou hast known, 
saying, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God, 
— I will build my Church, — above Myself, who am the 
Son of the Living God ; i" will build it on Me, and not 
Me on thee.' 

"That which St. Augustine thought upon this cele- 
brated passage, was the opinion of all Christendom in 
his time. . . . 

11 1 conclude victoriously, with History, with Reason, 
with Logic, with good sense, and with a Christian 
conscience, that Jesus Christ did not confer any 
supremacy on Peter, and that the Bishops of Rome 
did not become sovereigns of the Church, but only 
by confiscating, one by one, all the rights of the 
Episcopate/ ' 

11 Penetrated with the feelings of responsibility, of 
which God will demand of me an account, I have set 
myself to study, with the most serious attention, the 
writings of the Old and New Testament, and have 
asked these venerable monuments of truth to make me 
know if the Holy Pontiff, who presides there, is truly 
the successor of St. Peter, Vicar of Jesus Christ, and 
infallible Doctor of the Church. To resolve this 
grave question, I have been obliged to ignore the 
present state of things, and to transport myself in 
mind, with the evangelical torch in my hand, to the 
days when there was neither Ultramontanism, nor 
Gallicanism, and in which the Church had for Doctors 
St. Paul, St. Peter, St. James, and St. John — Doctors 
to whom no one can deny the divine authority with- 
out putting in doubt that which the Holy Bible, 



154 Romanism in the Light of History 

which is here before me, teaches us, and which the 
Council of Trent has proclaimed the rule of faith and 
morals. I have then opened these sacred pages. 
Well, shall I dare to say it? I have found nothing, 
either near or far, which sanctions the opinion of the 
Ultramontanes. And still more, to my very great 
surprise, I find no question in the Apostolic days, of a 
Pope, successor to St. Peter and Vicar of Jesus Christ, 
no more than of Mahomet, who did not then exist. 

"You, Monsignor Manning, will say that I blas- 
pheme; you, Monsignor Pic, will say that I am mad. 
No, Monsignori, I do not blaspheme, and I am not 
mad. Now, having read the whole New Testament, 
I declare before God, with my hand raised to that 
great crucifix, that I have found no trace of the Papacy 
as it exists at this moment. . . . Reading then the 
sacred books with that attention of which the Lord 
has made me capable, I do not find one single chapter 
or one little verse in which Jesus Christ gave St. 
Peter the mastery over the Apostles, his fellow- 
workers. If Simon Son of Jonas had been what we 
believe His Holiness Pius IX. to be to-day, it is won- 
derful that He had not said to him, ' When I shall have 
ascended to my Father you shall all obey Simon Peter 
as you obey Me. I establish him my Vicar upon 
earth.' Not only is Christ silent upon this point, but 
so little does He think of giving a head to the Church 
that when he promises thrones to his Apostles to 
judge the twelve tribes of Israel He promises them 
twelve, one for each, without saying that among these 
thrones one shall be higher than the others, which shall 
belong to Peter. . . . When Christ sent the Apostles 
to conquer the world, to all He gave equally the power 
to bind and to loose, and to all He gave the promise of 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 155 

the Holy Spirit. Permit me to repeat it. If He had 
wished to constitute Peter His Vicar, He would have 
given him the chief command over His spiritual 
Army. . . . One thing has surprised me very much. 
Turning it over in my mind I said to myself, If Peter 
had been elected Pope would his colleagues have been 
permitted to send him, with St. John, to Samaria to 
announce the gospel of the Son of God? (Acts viii. 
14.) . . . But here is another still more important 
fact. An (Ecumenical Council is assembled at Jeru- 
salem to decide on the questions which divide the 
faithful. Who would have called together this Coun- 
cil if St. Peter had been Pope? St. Peter. Who 
would have presided at it? St. Peter or his legates. 
Who would have formed or promulgated the Canons? 
St. Peter. 

"Well, nothing of all this occurred. The Apostle 
assisted at the Council as all the others did, and it was 
not he who summed up, but St. James; and when the 
decrees were promulgated, it was in the name of the 
Apostles and the Elders and the Brethren. (Acts 
xv.) . . . Neither in the writings of St. Paul, St. 
John, or St. James, have I found a trace or germ of the 
Papal power. St. Luke, the historian of the mission- 
ary labors of the Apostles, is silent on this all-impor- 
tant point. The silence of these holy men, whose 
writings make part of the Canon of the divinely 
inspired Scriptures, has appeared to me burdensome 
and impossible if Peter had been Pope, and as un- 
justifiable as if Thiers, writing the history of Napoleon 
Bonaparte, had omitted the title of Emperor. . . . 
That which has surprised me most, and which more- 
over is capable of demonstration, is the silence of St. 
Peter. If the Apostle had been what we proclaim 



156 Romanism in the Light of History 

him to be, that is, the Vicar of Jesus Christ on the 
earth, he surely would have known it. If he had 
known it, how is it that not once did he act as Pope? 
He might have done it on the day of Pentecost when 
he pronounced his first sermon, and he did not do it ; 
at the Council of Jerusalem, and he did not do it ; at 
Antioch, and he did not do it; neither did he do it 
in the two letters directed to the Church. Can you 
imagine such a Pope, my venerable Brethren, if St. 
Peter had been the Pope? Now, if you wish to main- 
tain that he was the Pope, the natural consequence 
arises, that he was ignorant of the fact. Now I ask 
whoever has a head to think and a mind to reflect, 
are these two suppositions possible? 

"To return, I say, while the Apostles lived, the 
Church never thought that there could be a Pope. 
To maintain the contrary all the sacred writings must 
have been thrown to the flames, or entirely ignored. 
But I hear it said on all sides, Was not St. Peter at 
Rome? Was he not crucified with his head down? 
Are not the seats on which he taught, and the altars 
at which he said the mass, in the Eternal City? St. 
Peter having been at Rome, my venerable brethren, 
rests only on tradition. But if he had been bishop 
of Rome, how can you from that Episcopate prove his 
supremacy? Scaliger, one of the most learned of 
men, has not hesitated to say, that St. Peter's Epis- 
copate and residence at Rome ought to be classed with 
ridiculous legends. (Repeated cries, ' Shut his mouth, 
shut his mouth; make him come down from the 
pulpit!') Venerable brethren, I am ready to be 
silent ; but is it not better, in an assembly like this, to 
prove all things, as the Apostle commands, and to 
believe what is good? But, my venerable friends, we 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 157 

have a Dictator before whom we must prostrate our- 
selves, and be silent all (even Pius IX.), and bow our 
heads. This Dictator is history." 

"Monsignor Dupanloup in his celebrated Obser- 
vations, on this Council of the Vatican, has said and 
with reason, that if we declare Pius IX. infallible, we 
must necessarily, and from natural logic, be obliged 
to hold that all his predecessors were also infallible. 
Well, then! venerable brethren, here History raises 
its voice with authority, to assure us that some Popes 
have erred. You may protest against it, or deny it as 
you please, but I will prove it. 

"Pope Victor (192) first approved of Montanism, 
and then condemned it. 

"Marcellinus (296-303) was an idolater. He en- 
tered into the temple of Vesta, and offered incense to 
the goddess. You will say that it was an act of weak- 
ness; but I answer, a vicar of Jesus Christ dies, but 
does not become an apostate. 

"Liberius (358) consented to the condemnation of 
St. Athanasius and made a profession of Arianism, that 
he might be recalled from his exile, and reinstated in 
his See. 

"Honorius (625) adhered to Monothelitism : Father 
Gratry has proved it to demonstration. 

" Gregory I. (578-590) calls any one Anti-Christ who 
takes the name of Universal Bishop ; and contrariwise, 
Boniface III. (607-608) made the parricide Emperor 
Phocas confer that title upon him. 

"Pascal II. (1088-1099) an( i Eugenius III. (1145- 
1153) authorized duelling; Julius II. (1509) and Pius 
IV. (1560) forbade it. Eugenius IV. (1431-1439) 
approved the Council of Basle, and the restitution of 



158 Romanism in the Light of History 

the chalice to the church of Bohemia. Pius II. (1458) 
revoked the concession. Hadrian II. declared civil 
marriages to be valid; Pius VII. (1800-1823) con- 
demned them. Sixtus V. (1 585-1 595) published an 
edition of the Bible, and by a Bull, recommended it to 
be read. Pius VII. condemned the reading of it. 
Clement XIV. (1 700-1 721) abolished the order of 
the Jesuits, permitted by Paul III. Pius VII. 
re-established it. . . . 

"Now, do not deceive yourselves. If you decree 
the dogma of Papal Infallibility, the Protestants, 
our adversaries, will mount in the breach, the more 
bold, that they have history on their side, whilst 
we have only our own denial against them. What 
can we say to them, when they show up all the 
Bishops of Rome from the days of Linus to his 
Holiness, Pius IX.? 

"Ah! if they had all been Pius IX., we should 
triumph on the whole line; but, alas! it is not so. 
(Cries of ' Silence, silence ; enough, enough ! ') Do not 
cry out, Monsignori! To fear history is to own your- 
self conquered ; and moreover, if you made the whole 
of the waters of the Tiber to pass over it, you would 
not cancel a single page. Let me speak and I will 
be as short as is possible on this most important 
subject. . . . 

"You know the history of Formosus too well for 
me to add to it. Stephen XL made his body be ex- 
humed, dressed in his Pontifical robes; he made the 
fingers which he used for giving the benediction to be 
cut off, and then had him thrown into the Tiber, 
declaring him to be a perjurer and illegitimate. He 
was then imprisoned by the people, poisoned, and 
strangled. But look how matters were readjusted. 



Encyclical of Leo XIII. 159 

"Romanus, successor of Stephen, and after him, 
John X., rehabilitated the memory of Formosus. 

"But you will tell me these are fables, not history. 
Fables! go, Monsignori, to the Vatican library, and 
read Platina, the historian of the Papacy, and the 
annals of Baronius (A.D. 897). These are facts, 
which, for the honor of the Holy See, we should wish 
to ignore; but when it is proposed to define a dogma, 
which may provoke a great schism in our midst, the 
love which we bear to our venerable Mother Church — 
Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman — ought it to impose 
silence on us? I go on. 

"The learned Cardinal Baronius, speaking of the 
Papal Court, says (give attention, my venerable 
brethren, to these words): 'What did the Roman 
Church appear in those days — how infamous! Only 
all-powerful courtesans governing in Rome! It was 
they who gave, exchanged, and took Bishoprics; and, 
horrible to relate, they got their lovers, the false Popes, 
put on the throne of St. Peter. ... I can understand 
how the illustrious Baronius must have blushed when 
he narrated the acts of these Roman Bishops. Speak- 
ing of John XI., natural son of Pope Sergius and of 
Morozia, he wrote these words in his Annals, 'The 
Holy Church, that is the Roman, has been vilely 
trampled on by such a monster. John XII. (956), 
elected Pope at the age of eighteen, through the in- 
fluence of courtesans, was not one bit better than his 
predecessor.' 

11 1 grieve, my venerable brethren, to stir up so much 
filth. I am silent on Alexander VI., father and lover 
of Lucretia. I turn away from John XXII. (1316), 
who denied the immortality of the soul, and was de- 
posed by the holy (Ecumenical Council of Constance. 



160 Romanism in the Light of History 

"Some will maintain that this Council was only a 
private one. Let it be so; but if you refuse any 
authority to it, as a logical sequence you must hold 
the nomination of Martin V. (141 7) as illegal. What 
then will become of the Papal succession? Can you 
find the thread of it? 

"I do not speak of the schisms which have dis- 
honored the Church. In these unfortunate days the 
See of Rome was occupied by two and sometimes even 
by three competitors. Which of these was the true 
Pope? 

"Resuming once more, again I say, if you decree 
the infallibility of the present Bishop of Rome, you 
must establish infallibility of all the preceding ones, 
without excluding any. But can you do that when 
history is there establishing, with a clearness equal to 
that only of the sun, that the Popes have erred in their 
teaching? Could you do it, and maintain that avari- 
cious, incestuous, murdering, simoniacal Popes have 
been Vicars of Jesus Christ? Oh! venerable brethren 
to maintain such an enormity would be to betray 
Christ worse than Judas ; it would be to throw dirt in 
the face of Christ. (Cries of ' Down from the pulpit — 
quick, shut the mouth of the heretic!') My venerable 
brethren, you cry out ; but will it not be more dignified 
to weigh my reasons and my proofs in the balances of 
the sanctuary? Believe me, history cannot be made 
over again; it is there, and will remain to all eternity, 
to protest energetically against the dogma of Papal 
Infallibility." 



The Fundamental Principles 
of Protestantism 



Three Lectures Delivered in Holy Trinity Church 
(Harlem) New York City 

Il&PTa 80KLfX<i^€T€ 



I6l 



Protestant Principles 
I 

THE RULE OF FAITH, AND ITS INTERPRETER 

" Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the com- 
mon salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort 
you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once 
delivered unto the saints. 1 ' — S. Jude, 3. 

IT is an apostolic injunction that Christians should 
always be ready to give an answer to every 
man that asketh them a reason of the hope that is 
in them. And to give the reasons why we are 
Protestants — what it is we make protest against, 
and why — what it is we make protest for, and why 
— this is certainly something which needs no 
apology at any time. Such an exposition of our 
faith seems, however, at the present time not only 
reasonable but requisite — a thing which our people 
and the public may properly require at the hands 
of those whose office it is to explain and defend the 
sacred truths of our holy religion. 

Lectures against Protestantism are of too com- 
mon occurrence in the Roman Catholic Church to 
excite either surprise or comment. But when, as 
in the case of a course of lectures now in progress 

163 



164 Romanism in the Light of History 

in one of the metropolitan pulpits, the arguments 
and accusations against the religion of Protestants 
pass from the pulpit to the press, and so find their 
way into tens of thousands of Protestant families, 
the case is different. For my part, at least, as a 
minister of a Church which is most emphatically 
Protestant — inasmuch as she has made the most 
effective as well as the wisest and the most 
reasonable protest against the novelties, errors, 
corruptions, and usurpations of the Church of 
Rome — I feel that I shall be only performing my 
simple duty as a loyal churchman, and even more 
as a faithful Christian teacher, in taking this 
opportunity of defining and defending our posi- 
tion as Protestants. And if, in the performance of 
this duty, it shall become necessary to uncover 
some of the dark history of the Church of Rome, 
and recall some of its crimes against religion, 
against truth, against humanity, the responsibility 
will rest not with me, but rather with those who 
have publicly arraigned the religion of Protestants 
before this community, and launched accusations 
against it, the truth or falsity of which can only 
be tested by an appeal to history. 

Now, first of all, and before entering particularly 
upon the exhibition of the grounds upon which we 
protest against the doctrine and practice of the 
Church of Rome, I desire to make two brief pre- 
liminary remarks. The first is that Protestant- 
ism is not, as commonly represented, a mere 
series of negations; denying error rather than 



Protestant Principles 165 

affirming truth; repudiating false doctrine rather 
than proclaiming the true. — No; we write the 
word "Protestant" on our escutcheon in its full 
etymological significance. A Protestant is one 
that bears witness for any person or thing; and a 
Protestant Church is one that "bears witness for" 
Christ and His gospel in the world. It is a name 
not to be ashamed of either in its origin or in its 
history. When our Lord Jesus Christ stood before 
Pilate, He said of Himself: "To this end was I 
born, and for this cause came I into the world, 
that I should bear witness unto the truth. " Humbly 
treading in the footsteps of her Divine Lord, the 
Protestant Church goes forth into the world having 
this as her aim, that she may "bear witness unto the 
truth." 

Noah was a Protestant when, by the space of 
forty years, he preached "righteousness" to the 
apostate antediluvians. Lot was a Protestant 
when he stood alone for God in the midst of wicked 
Sodom. The Jewish Nation was Protestant, 
standing among the nations of the earth a witness 
for the unity of God, the supremacy of conscience, 
and the sanctity of the moral law. And, supreme 
instance — let it never be forgotten that Christ and 
His apostles were Protestants in their day. They 
were Protestants for the truth of God, against the 
traditions and corruptions of the Jewish hierarchy 
— the established church of that day. And they 
not only bore witness for the revelation made in 
the incarnation of the Son of God, but they bore 



1 66 Romanism in the Light of History 

witness against the false doctrines of the scribes 
and pharisees, the chief priests and elders of the 
Church. In like manner and in fulfilment of the 
injunction of the Great Head of the Church, this 
Church of ours bears witness among men to-day, 
not only positively, for "the faith once delivered to 
the saints, " but negatively ', against the manifold 
corruptions of that faith for which the Church of 
Rome is responsible. And, therefore, she bears 
on her escutcheon the glorious word "Protestant" — 
the Witness-bearer. 

The other introductory remark I have to make is 
that though we are Protestants, we are not heretics 
or separatists. 

In 1868, the late Pope Pius IX. addressed letters 
"to Protestants and other non-Catholics," inviting 
them to return to the bosom of Holy Mother Church 
as the only means of insuring their salvation. 

We deny that we have ever separated from the 
Catholic Church. One of the articles of our faith 
is, "/ believe in the Holy Catholic Church," and 
in this we claim and enjoy full membership by that 
same Spirit which joins in one communion and 
fellowship "the blessed company of all faithful 
people/ ' In fact, the Pope and his adherents are 
the innovators and heretics who have departed 
from "the faith once delivered, " who have cor- 
rupted the Christian creed, and not the Protestants 
who have rejected their novelties and returned to 
the creed and the practice of the primitive ages 
of Christianity. Yes, it is the Church of Rome, 



Protestant Principles 167 

and not the Church of England, which by her 
errors and usurpations has separated herself from 
the Catholic Church of Christ. When she de- 
parted from the primitive faith she became hereti- 
cal, and when she made the acknowledgment of 
her erroneous and strange doctrines a condition of 
membership within her communion, she then 
forced upon men the alternative of separating 
from her or abandoning the faith which they were 
bound to " contend for." Luther and Melanch- 
thon, Calvin and Beza, Cranmer and Ridley and 
Latimer — all that noble band of Reformers in the 
sixteenth century, chose the former alternative. 
They decided to obey God rather than men. 
Were they therefore heretics? Was it heresy to 
cleave to Christ and Christ's unchangeable truth, 
rather than to abandon these for the sake of union 
with a Church which had apostatized from the 
faith and required all her members to acquiesce 
in her apostasy? Nay, was not she the heretic 
who, abandoning the Holy Scriptures as her guide, 
taught for doctrines the commandments of men? 
Let it be remembered, also, that, so far as the 
Church of England was concerned, the Reforma- 
tion was no more or less than a rebellion against a 
foreign yoke, and the restoration of the original 
ecclesiastical authority. The British Church had 
existed for centuries in entire independence of 
Rome. It had produced martyrs to the faith in 
the reign of Diocletian. It had sent bishops to 
the Councils of Aries (A.D. 314) Sardica (A.D. 347), 



168 Romanism in the Light of History 

and Ariminum (A.D. 359). It had held numerous 
synods of its own. As to its orthodoxy, St. 
Jerome and St. Chrysostom had both borne tes- 
timony to it. But it was not until the seventh 
century that the Church of Rome gained a footing 
on the island. Her pretensions to exercise au- 
thority over the British Church were resisted. 
The bishops of the native Church refused to yield 
their customs or to receive Augustine as their 
archbishop. They resisted for more than a 
century the attempt of Rome to bring them into 
subjection. In short, the Church of England of 
that day became Romanized only after an in- 
effectual protest and a prolonged resistance on the 
part of the native episcopate. Moreover, that 
act of usurpation had already been condemned 
by the Council of Ephesus, in the Cypriote decree 
which provides "that none of the bishops ... do 
assume any other province that is not or was not 
formerly and from the beginning subject to him, 
or those who were his predecessors. " And again: 
"If any one introduce a regulation contrary to the 
present determination, the Holy General Synod 
decrees that it be of no force.' ' It follows from 
all this that the Reformation was really the break- 
ing of a foreign yoke, and the re-establishment of 
the old Church — the apostolic and primitive 
Church of England. And the protest of the six- 
teenth century was but the renewing and rendering 



Protestant Principles 169 

effective of the protest made by the British bishops 
in the seventh century. 

And now, having stated these preliminary 
truths, I come to explain and defend one of the 
principal grounds of our protest against Romanism. 
I select that which is foremost of all, and funda- 
mental to the whole controversy, viz. : The attitude 
which that apostate church holds toward the Word of 
God, the Sacred Scriptures of the Old and New 
Testaments. 

In order that there may be no risk or suspicion 
of misrepresentation of the true teaching of the 
Romish Church, I shall quote the very words of 
one of their own standards, I mean the Creed of 
Pope Pius IV., which was published at Rome, 
A.D. 1564, and has now, for upwards of 300 years, 
been the universal symbol of doctrine in that 
Church. It was drawn up in conformity with the 
definitions of the Council of Trent, which was 
assembled about the middle of the sixteenth 
century to settle authoritatively the doctrines of 
the Church of Rome. 

Here, then, are the declarations of this Creed 
upon the point under discussion : 

1. "I most firmly admit and embrace the 
apostolical and ecclesiastical traditions, and all 
other observances and constitutions of the same 
Church." 

2. "I admit also Holy Scripture, according to 
that sense which Holy Mother Church, to whom 
it appertains to judge of the true meaning and 



170 Romanism in the Light of History 

interpretation of the sacred Scriptures, hath 
holden and still holds," etc. 

Now, compare with this the language of the 
Council of Trent : 

The Holy (Ecumenical and General Council of 
Trent . . . receives and venerates with equal senti- 
ments of piety and reverence ... all the books of 
the Old and New Testaments, and also those tradi- 
tions, whether pertaining to faith or to morals, which 
have been preserved by continual succession in the 
Catholic Church. 

Here, then, is the first, as it is the fundamental, 
error against which we protest — the making 
tradition, i. e. } the alleged oral teaching of the 
Apostles, handed down from their times, of equal 
authority with the written Word of God; and the 
declaration that the sacred Scriptures are to be 
admitted only in the sense in which the Roman 
Church explains them. Our Sixth Article declares, 
on the contrary, that "Holy Scripture containeth 
all things necessary to salvation; so that whatso- 
ever is not read therein, nor may be proved there- 
by, is not to be required of any man that it should 
be believed as an article of faith." When this is 
denied, the very foundations of the faith are 
sapped. Our feet no longer stand on the rock of 
God's written Word, but upon the uncertain and 
shifting sands of tradition. No wonder that the 
Church of Rome has been "driven about by every 
wind of doctrine, " since she has cast anchor upon 



Protestant Principles 171 

such treacherous ground ! For, mark you, as if it 
were not a sufficient impiety to declare the tra- 
ditions of men to be of equal authority with the 
written word, she really exalts tradition above the 
word, by making that the rule of interpretation. 

Let us take an example which may show how 
far the traditions to which the Church of Rome 
appeals are to be depended on. In the ninth 
century a stupendous forgery arose in France, 
under the name of the Isidorian Decretals, con- 
sisting of nearly one hundred letters written in the 
names of earlier bishops of Rome, together with 
certain spurious writings of other church digni- 
taries and acts of hitherto unknown councils. 
These documents were eagerly seized upon by 
Nicolas I., the then Pope, and by him and his 
successors were made the instrument of completely 
revolutionizing the constitution of the Church and 
developing the papal power from a mere primacy 
into an absolute ecclesiastical despotism. 1 For 
centuries these false decretals were accepted as 
genuine, but for now three hundred years their 
true character has been known, and they have 
been on all hands admitted to be a forgery, and a 
very clumsy forgery at that. Even the most 
extreme partisans of Rome now admit this — indeed 
the Popes themselves have admitted it; yet the 
radical changes which they were instruments of 
introducing remain. 

1 See Robertson's Church History, 1874, v °l- &•> P« 3 2 5~6» and 
Gieseler, Eccl. Hist., vol. ii., p. 69. Phila., 1836. 



172 Romanism in the Light of History 

Now one cannot help asking, what dependence 
is to be placed on the traditions which the Church 
of Rome professes to have preserved since the 
time of the Apostles, if she has either ignorantly or 
designedly accepted a gross forgery for so many 
centuries, and made it the support and foundation 
of doctrines and usages which she has insisted on 
as vital to the true constitution of the Church. 
And this is only one of numerous examples in 
which the infallible Church of Rome has accepted 
and magnified the authority of documents which 
have subsequently been proved and admitted to 
be forgeries. If she is thus incapable of distin- 
guishing the true from the false among the writings 
and documents of her own bishops and synods, 
how, then, are we to trust her when she presents 
us with so-called traditions, handed down from the 
age of the Apostles? 1 And how can we do other- 
wise than protest against her impiety when we see 
the plainest declarations of the sacred Scriptures 
made void by her pretended traditions? 

In our Saviour's time, the Pharisees appealed 
to tradition, but our Lord made His appeal ever to 
the Scriptures. He charged them with trans- 
gressing the commandments of God by their 
tradition. His words to them are most applicable 
to-day to the heretical Church of Rome: "Thus 

1 Nay, since these decretals pretended to cover a portion of the 
first century, and to give the sentiments of men contemporary 
with the Apostles, they afford an actual example of forgeries 
being accepted as genuine traditions of the Apostolic age. 



Protestant Principles 1 73 

have ye made the word of God of none effect by your 
tradition" (Matt. xv. 6). u In vain do they 
worship me, teaching for doctrines the command- 
ments of men 11 (v. 9). He said to the Jews, 
u Search the Scriptures" ; He never said, " Search 
your traditions." Moreover, it was their adher- 
ence to the traditions of the elders which so pre- 
judiced the minds of the Jewish hierarchy that 
they could not recognize the claims of Christ. to 
be the Messiah. 

The authority of Christ is, therefore, against the 
principle of setting up tradition on the same pedes- 
tal with the word of God. x 

But again, Rome teaches that the Bible is only 
to be accepted according to the sense which the 
church puts upon it. Let us take an example or 
two of the church's interpretation. 

1. Our Lord's words to St. Peter: " Satan hath 
desired to have thee, that he might sift thee as 
wheat, but I have prayed for thee that thy faith 
fail not, and when thou art converted strengthen 
thy brethren." This, we are told by Roman 
Catholic interpreters since Pope Agatho, A.D. 680, 
contains a grant of special privileges to the bishops 
of Rome, as successors of St. Peter. It is the chief 
passage relied on to establish the dogma of Papal 

1 Protestants do not deny that what the Apostles delivered 
orally was of equal authority with what they wrote, but they 
reject the traditions of the Church of Rome, because she cannot 
prove them to be genuine. Hence 2 Thess. ii. 15, which is the 
refuge of the Romish controversialist on this subject, really lends 
him no protection or support. 



174 Romanism in the Light of History 

Infallibility! And this, although not one of the 
eighteen Fathers who comment on the passage, 
gives any hint of such an interpretation. 1 

2. The fact that Peter walked on the sea was 
alleged by Pope Innocent III. as conclusive evi- 
dence that his successors are entitled to rule the 
nations! This was declared by him in a letter 
addressed to the Patriarch of Constantinople, in 
which he claimed that " Christ had committed the 
government of the whole world to the Popes. " 2 

3. Matt. xvi. 18: "Thou art Peter, and upon 
this rock I will build my church, and the gates of 
hell shall not prevail against it." Of all the 
fathers who interpret these words not a single one 
applies them to the Roman bishops as Peter's 
successors. Origen, Chrysostom, Hilary, Augus- 
tine, Cyril, Theodoret, and others have com- 
mented upon them; but "not one of them has 
explained the rock or foundation on which Christ 
would build His church of the office given to Peter 
to be transmitted to his successors." 3 

But this passage is the great stronghold of the 
pretensions of Rome, so far as she professes to 
give her authority in Scripture. Now the Tri- 
dentine Confession of Faith contains a vow "never 
to interpret Scripture otherwise than in accord 
with the unanimous consent of the fathers," i. e., 

1 The Pope and the Council, p. 75. Edition of 1870. Boston. 

2 Innoc. III., lib. ii. f 209. Ad Patr. Constantin: Dominus Petro 
non solum Universam Ecciesiam, sed totum reliquit saeculum 
gubernandum. Id., p. 133. 

3 Id., p. 74. 



Protestant Principles 175 

the great church doctors of the first six centuries. 
Hence the Romish clergy, in interpreting this 
passage as they do, violate their oath. 

Such interpretations as these, proceeding from 
the supposed "infallible" popes — in conflict with 
common sense, in conflict with the laws of sound 
exegesis, in conflict with the exposition given by 
the fathers of the church — may serve to show 
how deceitfully the Church of Rome deals 
with Holy Scripture. "Private interpretation," 
says Dr. Preston, "has virtually declared 
the Bible to be of straw." 1 But papal and 
Roman interpretation has actually used the 
Bible as a piece of wax, to be pressed into 
whatever shape the exigencies of their cause may 
demand. 

The real truth is, the Church of Rome is afraid 
of the Word of God, unless supplemented and 
overlaid by her traditions. This is not an empty 
assertion ; it is based on Roman Catholic authority. 
Witness the following declarations authorized by 
the Council of Trent: "If the Holy Scriptures be 
everywhere allowed indiscriminately in the vulgar 
tongue, more harm than good will arise from it." 
And again: "If any one shall presume to read or 
possess a Bible, without a license, he shall not 
receive absolution, except he first deliver it up." 
It is true that Douay Bibles are sometimes ex- 
posed for sale in Roman Catholic book shops, but 
so high an authority of their own as Dens tells us 

1 New York World, Dec. 9, 1878. 



176 Romanism in the Light of History 

this is a relaxation of the rule, permitted in Protes- 
tant countries. x 

The difference between us and the Church of 
Rome upon this whole matter may be summed up 
thus : the Bible and the Bible alone is the basis of 
the religion of Protestants. Tradition, interpret- 
ing the Bible, and often superseding or contradict- 
ing it, furnishes the Romanist with his religion. 
The Protestant Church loves the Bible. The 
Roman Church fears it. The Protestant Church 
gives the Bible to the people in their own tongue, 
and spreads the knowledge of it by means of trans- 
lations into four hundred languages and dialects. 
The Roman Church keeps it away from the people, 
and has proved on numerous well-known occasions 
that she would rather see men burn it than read it. 

Our Roman assailant says, " Protestantism has 
torn the Bible to pieces. " 2 But even that is not 
so bad as burning it, for the leaves of the torn 
Bible, borne by the winds of heaven over the 
earth, may carry the message of life and im- 
mortality to mankind; — the single verse: "God 
so loved the world that He gave His only begotten 
Son, etc., " once led a poor Hindu out of his heathen 
darkness into the light ; — but when it is burned, its 
power to bless is gone, for men cannot read its 
message in its ashes, and the only voice it then has 

1 " More indulgence has been granted only when it was neces- 
sary to live among heretics." Dens: Tractate Concerning Rules 
of Faith, N. 64. 

2 The Results of the Reformation, p. 38. 



Protestant Principles 177 

is that of anathema against the sacrilegious hand 
that committed it to the fire. I 

But it is alleged that there is no agreement 
among Protestants as to the doctrines contained 
in the Bible, and that this results from the principle 
of private judgment, which produces endless 
divisions and differences among them; and then it 
is declared triumphantly that God is not the 
author of confusion, and therefore cannot be the 
author of Protestantism. Is the Roman Catholic 
Church, then, a household free from differences 
and divisions and conflicts? Are its interpreta- 
tions of Scripture consistent and harmonious? 

Take, for instance, the controversy about Pre- 
destination, which was referred to last Sunday 
evening in such a manner as to lead the audience 
to suppose that it was one of the dire results of the 
Reformation. The speaker traced the genesis of 
this doctrine to the reformed theology : " So came 
the theory of Predestination. " But what are the 
facts? Is that doctrine indeed peculiar to Protes- 
tants? And has the controversy about it been 
confined to Protestant churches? Three undeni- 
able historical facts will suffice to determine. 
The first is, that more than a thousand years before 
the Reformation the theory of Predestination was 
ably and elaborately expounded by St. Augustine, 
who is by many held to be the greatest of the 

1 A Manila paper of February 3, 19 14 gives an account of the 
burning of 2500 Bibles in the Plaza at Vigan, P. I., by the Friars 
of the R. C. Church. 



178 Romanism in the Light of History 

fathers, and is claimed by the Church of Rome as 
one of her theologians. The second is, that in the 
ninth century the church was convulsed by this 
controversy in the well-known case of the monk 
Gottschalk, and for ten years it raged with great 
fury. It might be described in the language used 
by Dr. Preston, in his picture of the dissensions of 
Protestants: " Pulpit stands against pulpit, and 
individual against individual, and church against 
church' ' — for bishop was arrayed against bishop, 
theologian against theologian, council against 
council! 1 The third fact of history is, that in the 
seventeenth century the same controversy con- 
vulsed the Romish Church, maintained by the 
Jansenists on one side and the Jesuits on the other, 
with a bitterness certainly never surpassed by 
Protestants. 2 The conflicts between the religious 
orders, each contending for supremacy, each 
striving to aggrandize his party, furnish another 
conclusive instance. Again, what could have 
been more bitter than the controversies at the last 

1 See Gieseler, Eccl. Hist., vol. ii., pp. 50-54. 

2 The bitterness of this long-continued controversy (it lasted 
from 1640 to 1 713), and the unavailing efforts of the Popes to 
restore harmony and agreement in doctrine, afford a crucial ex- 
ample of the hollowness of the claims of Romish controversialists, 
that peace and harmony are to be found only in the bosom of the 
Church of Rome. Four successive popes gave their authoritative 
and, of course, "infallible," decisions upon the matters in con- 
troversy, but still the conflict was not ended. At one time the 
whole body of the French clergy, except four bishops, refused to 
submit to the decision of the Pope (Alexander VII.), though 
threatened with excommunication. 



Protestant Principles 179 

Roman Catholic Council in 1870, on the subject of 
the new dogma of Infallibility? And to-day, how 
wide apart are the parties which are struggling for 
the mastery in the Church of Rome ! 

It is true that, when a decision is reached, the 
opposition generally submit. Of all the learned 
prelates who denounced with so much fervor and 
refuted with so much eloquence the new dogma of 
Infallibility at the Vatican Council in 1870, all, I 
believe, with one, or possibly two, exceptions, 
finally gave in their submission to the decree mak- 
ing that dogma a part of the creed of the church. 
But such submission is no proof of real unity. 
Those bishops are in their hearts as little convinced 
of the truth of that blasphemous doctrine as ever. 
But they submit — because the Church of Rome is 
an ecclesiastical monarchy, yea, an absolute 
spiritual despotism. We Protestants prefer lib- 
erty of conscience and freedom of thought, even 
at the cost of external uniformity. But Rome has 
ever been a foe to liberty, whether civil or ecclesi- 
astical. The friends of constitutional liberty 
should never forget that it was a pope of Rome 
who pronounced the Magna Charta, upon which 
English liberty is based, null and void, and ex- 
communicated the barons who obtained it from the 
unwilling hands of King John. 

This is the reason she is, externally, free from 
divisions; but surely such uniformity is purchased 
very dearly at the price of liberty of thought and 
supremacy of conscience. 



180 Romanism in the Light of History 

And, after all, unity is not secured. They 
reproach us with our divisions; but it may be 
safely affirmed that there is even more unity and 
agreement among the leading Protestant Churches 
to-day than there is in the Roman Catholic Church. 
Any traveler will tell you that the Roman Catholic 
Church in New York is as different from the 
Roman Catholic Church in Mexico, or in Spain, or 
in South America, as the Presbyterian Churches 
differ from the Dutch Reformed, or the Episcopal 
from the Methodist Episcopal. In pulpit teach- 
ing, in ceremonies, in practical rules of living, 
there is more difference in the former case than the 
latter. I tell you, brethren, this boasted unity of 
the Roman Catholic Church is a sham and a 
delusion; it is nominal rather than real, external 
rather than vital. So, too, with the interpretation 
of Scripture, Private judgment, they say, is a 
false and dangerous guide; endless conflicting in- 
terpretations result from it. And so "the Bible 
ceases to be a guide to faith, since its pages take 
the color of the individual reader's education or 
ignorance." The Church alone is the safe guide 
and the true interpreter. Of course, then, we are 
to expect harmony and consistency in the Church '$ 
interpretations! But we find no such thing; not 
only has she added 1 new doctrines — e. g., in our 

1 The Creed of Pius IV. contains twelve new articles of faith, 
bound upon the church, in express violation of the decree of the 
Fourth (Ecumenical Council, which anathematized any who 
should dare to "compile, put together, hold, or teach others" any 
other than the Nicene Creed. 



Protestant Principles 181 

own generation, the Immaculate Conception and 
Papal Infallibility — but her highest dignitaries 
contradict each other in their interpretations of 
Scripture. Thus two popes of Rome declared it 
to be so indispensable for infants to receive 
communion that those who die without it go 
straight to hell. Yet the Council of Trent, which 
Pope Pius IV. indorsed and bound upon the whole 
Church, anathematized this doctrine. This is a 
greater difference than there is between Baptists 
and Episcopalians! Pope Pelagius declared the 
invocation of the Trinity necessary in order to 
validity of baptism (A.D. 555-60); but an- 
other pope (Nicolas I.) assured the Bulgarians 
that baptism in the name of Christ alone was 
sufficient ! 

Celestine III. declared the marriage tie dis- 
solved if either party became heretical. Innocent 
III. annulled this decision, and Adrian VI. called 
Celestine a heretic for giving it ! And upon so vital 
a doctrine as that of the Divinity of Christ, 
Liberius, one of the early bishops of Rome, was 
himself heretical. Yes, one of their infallible 
popes, upon whose interpretations of Scripture 
the whole world of scholars and theologians is 
bidden to wait, actually subscribed an Arian 
creed, though Arianism is by that very same church 
pronounced (as it indeed is) a most dangerous 
heresy ! 

Such facts as these are not suggestive of unity, 
consistency, or truth. They cannot but create 



1 82 Romanism in the Light of History 

the suspicion that this church, which claims to be 
an infallible interpreter of the Bible, has not 
improved upon private judgment, even in the 
colors in which she paints it. In short, it looks 
very much as if Dr. Preston's charge against 
Protestantism was at least as true against his own 
church, for the pages of the Bible seem to have 
"taken the color of the individual [Pope's] educa- 
tion or ignorance, " or at least of his fears or 
ambitions. 

To look, then, for certainty and rest in the 
Roman Catholic Church, because she claims 
to be an infallible interpreter, is to pursue 
an ignis fhtuus: it is to guide our steps by 
a misleading light, begotten of corruption 
and decay, rather than by the fainter but 
purer and truer light of the polar star. For 
ourselves it is sufficient to know that the 
Holy Ghost is the author of Holy Scripture, 
and thence to conclude without doubt that 
it is not so written as to be an unintelligi- 
ble puzzle to the earnest and patient inquirer, 
especially since one of the evangelists assures 
us that it was written "that we might believe 
that Jesus is the Christ, " and "that believing 
we might have life through His name." 1 And 
while there is much in the sacred volume which 
we may comprehend but imperfectly at best, 
and many matters upon which the wisest in- 
terpreters will continue to differ, we can rest 

X S. John xx. 31. 



Protestant Principles 183 

in the assurance that upon the fundamental 1 
and practical and necessary truths, its testimony 
is so plain that a wayfaring man, though a fool, 
need not err therein. 

1 Upon the import of this word in connection with Christian 
doctrine, see Chillingworth's great work. 



II 

THE WAY OF LIFE 

" Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye t but 
consider est not the beam that is in thine own eye ? " — S. Matt. vii. 3. 

IN resuming the subject upon which it was my 
privilege to address you last Sunday evening, it 
is proper that I should again remind you that this 
discussion of the claims of Romanism is not of our 
seeking. Far more congenial is it to our tastes, 
and far more consonant with the genius of the 
Protestant Episcopal Church, to leave our fellow 
Christians of the Roman Catholic Church to be 
fully persuaded in their own minds, while we spend 
our strength in the exposition of positive truth 
and the enforcement of practical religion. But our 
Protestant faith has recently been publicly and 
vehemently assailed in this city. The pulpit has 
thundered forth denunciations of the Reformers 
and the Reformation, and the pamphlet and the 
newspaper have echoed and re-echoed them over 
the land. A picture, dark and dire, of the results 
of the Reformation has been drawn, and copies of 
it scattered by the daily press among thousands of 

Protestant families. Men are assured that it has 

184 



Protestant Principles 185 

been destructive of morality, of society, of the 
Christian Church, and of the Christian Creed. 
Finally, they are warned that Protestantism is the 
parent of infidelity, and that there is but one 
alternative for reasonable men — infidelity or the 
Catholic {i.e. y the Roman) Church. 1 

Under these circumstances, Protestant teach- 
ers seem called upon to repel and refute the 
slanders against their faith, and to expose the 
groundlessness of the arrogant claims of the Papal 
Church. 

In order to this end it will be enough (without 
entering upon the whole broad field of controversy 
which would be both tedious and unprofitable for 
you) to establish two or three principles which are 
fundamental — which are, so to speak, the key 
positions of the battlefield between us and Rome. 
If, then, I shall pass over in this discussion many 
minor points, it will not be because they are not 
defensible, but because my limits forbid their 
defense. If I shall fail to notice some of the many 
slanders against the Reformers or the Reformation, 
it will not be because they cannot be refuted, but 
because I have not space to refute them. The 
lectures against Protestantism delivered in St. 
Ann's Church are in the nature of an indictment; 
and, of course, the defense of the accused requires 
more time and space than the mere formulation of 
the charges. But if the chief matters alleged are 
shown to be without ground in fact and reason, 

1 Results of the Protestant Reformation, p. 41. 



1 86 Romanism in the Light of History 

the general untrustworthiness of the accusers 
will have been shown and the indictment will 
fail. • 

In pursuance of this plan, your attention was 
called on Sunday evening last to the first, as it is 
also the fundamental, ground of our solemn protest 
against the Papal Church, viz. : its attitude toward 
the Sacred Scriptures. I showed you that by first 
putting forward a pretended body of tradition — 
i. e. y of teaching alleged to have been delivered 
orally by the apostles, and subsequently committed 
to writing by the Fathers, and so handed down to 
the present day — and then making this pretended 
tradition the rule by which the Scriptures are to be 
interpreted, she dishonors and makes void the 
word of God, as the Pharisees did of old, teaching 
for doctrines the commandments of men ; whereas 
we Protestants, following the precepts of Scrip- 
ture itself, make our appeal to the written word, as 
the only sure and certain deposit of revelation. 
"To the law and to the testimony: If they speak 
not according to this word, it is because there is 
no light in them. " To exemplify the folly of 
accepting her pretended apostolic tradition, I 
pointed out how, for about eight centuries, she 
accepted as genuine the famous pseudo-Isidorian 
Decrees, which the world of scholars, including 
even the Jesuits, has now for a long time declared 
to have been a forgery — thus conclusively proving 
that slie has not kept even her own papal tradi- 
tions pure, and thereby giving all men sufficient 



Protestant Principles 187 

ground for refusing to accept her pretended 
apostolic tradition. 

I next proceeded to expose the weakness of her 
claim to be the only interpreter, and the infallible 
interpreter, too, of the Sacred Scriptures, by giving 
examples of absurd, and again of contradictory, 
interpretations put forward by her popes, in whom, 
according to their present doctrine, the infallibility 
of the Church resides. I showed you how they 
contradicted, in these interpretations, by turns, 
the laws of language, the writings of the Fathers, 
and each other; and I went on to expose the in- 
consistency of charging Protestants with divisions 
and dissensions, when most of the very same dis- 
putes have raged within her own bosom, and she 
actually presents differences of teaching and of 
practice in different parts of the world quite as 
great as are to be found in the leading Protestant 
churches of Christendom. 

From all this I argued that the boasted unity of 
the Papal Church was a sham and a delusion — at 
best the outward union which exists under an 
absolute despotism, and not that " unity of the 
spirit' ' whose only bonds are Faith, Hope, and 
Charity. 

From the rule of faith, I pass this evening to 
The Way of Life. When we have determined 
the rule by which all religious questions are to be 
settled, at once we are confronted by that greatest 
of all such questions, " What must I do to be saved?" 
The respective answers given by Romish and 



1 88 Romanism in the Light of History 

Protestant Christianity to this question indicate 
the second great fundamental difference between 
them. 

Here, then, is Rome's answer: First, you must 
be baptized and in baptism you will receive the 
benefits of Christ's atonement, and, if you put 
no bar in the way (obicem), you will thereby be 
cleansed from all your sins, original and actual, 
and be restored to the purity which Adam had 
before the fall. But, if by committing sin (and 
who does not commit sin?) you lose this state of 
purity, you must then resort to the priest, who sits 
in the Tribunal of Penance, and kneeling before 
him you must confess all your mortal sins — whis- 
pering them into his ear. From him you will then 
receive absolution in these words, "I absolve thee," 
and this you are to understand as a judicial act, 
whereby pardon is conveyed as by a judge. Says 
the Council of Trent: "If any one shall say that 
the sacramental absolution of the priest is not a 
judicial act, but a bare ministerial act of pro- 
nouncing and declaring to the person confessing, 
that his sins are forgiven ... let him be ac- 
cursed. Ml This done, you are restored to your 
baptismal purity. But are you released from the 
penalty of your sins? No; only from eternal 
punishment. You have still to endure temporal 
punishment on account of them, in this life, if it 
shall be long enough; if not, then in Purgatory. 
You may lighten this, however, by masses, by 

x Council of Trent, p. 102. Paris, 1832. 



Protestant Principles 189 

almsdeeds, fasts, pilgrimages, penances of various 
kinds, prescribed by the priest, your judge. 

In case of venial sin confession is not necessary; 
it may be removed by good works and extreme 
unction. As often, however, as any u mortal sin" 
is committed, you must repair to the Tribunal of 
Penance and be restored, and if, after death, any 
of your allotted punishment yet remains un- 
endured, or if any u venial sin " be yet unatoned for, 
it is to be taken away in Purgatory. " Further- 
more, " says the Council of Trent, " there is a 
purgatorial fire, in which the souls of the pious, 
after having been tormented for a definite time, 
are purified so that an entrance into their Eternal 
Home may be opened." 1 The Pope, however, 
has power to remit the temporal punishment of 
sin, even when the sinner is in Purgatory. 2 He 
holds the keys of the Church's treasury of super- 
abundant merits, and by these and also by masses, 
the pains of Purgatory may be lightened or 
shortened. If, therefore, you, being rich, leave 
behind you when you die, besides your money, 
affectionate relatives who are willing to spend 
your money (or theirs) for masses on your account, 

1 Catechism of the Council of Trent. Art. on "Descent into 
Hell." 

a "Trionfo, commissioned by John XXII. to expound the 
rights of the Pope, showed that, as the dispenser of the merits of 
Christ, he could empty Purgatory at one stroke. 11 (See The Pope 
and the Council, p. 186.) This, however, he advised him by no 
means to do — probably because it would be to kill the goose that 
laid the golden egg. 



190 Romanism in the Light of History 

you may hope that your term of suffering in the 
fires of Purgatory will be shortened. If not, not. 
If you are poor, the only resort is to join a "Pur- 
gatorian Society,' 1 in which, by a small weekly 
payment, a sum may be accumulated which will be 
put to your account in the spiritual bank of Purga- 
tory, the key of which is kept by the priests. 

If this be true, then, the atonement of our Lord 
and Saviour Jesus Christ was not sufficient to take 
away sin ! It must be supplemented by purgato- 
rial fires! Then all those precious assurances of 
forgiveness and redemption in His blood, of adop- 
tion into the family of God, and obtaining a joint 
inheritance with Christ, are to be explained away 
and made void ; and we are to understand them to 
mean that after we have passed through the fires 
of Purgatory, then we will be cleansed from our 
sins! According to this interpretation, when our 
Lord said to the dying thief, " This day thou shalt 
be with me in Paradise,' 1 his meaning must have 
been "This day thou shall be with me in Purga- 
tory I ' ' And when St. Paul said, ' ' / have a desire to 
depart, and to be with Christ, " he must have meant, 
U I have a desire to depart, and go to Purgatory, 
which is far better than to be in this world. 11 And 
when he wrote to the Corinthians, " We know that 
if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, 
we have a building of God — a house not made with 
hands, 11 no doubt he was referring to the prison 
house, where the souls of the pious expiate in fire 
the sins of the body ! 



Protestant Principles 191 

Alas! alas! what an awful perversion is this of 
the gospel of peace ! 

Well does the great Hooker exclaim, "This is the 
mystery of the man of sin. This maze the Church 
of Rome doth cause her followers to tread, when 
they ask her the way of justification. "* 

It is, indeed, a maze — a dark and devious path, 
full of thorns and briers. How different from the 
straight and narrow way which the Scriptures re- 
veal, and in which the wayf aring man, though a fool, 
need not err! Against such a corruption and per- 
version of the gospel, the Church of England made 
fervent protest three hundred years ago, as she 
does still to-day. When men ask her what they 
must do to be saved, she points them to Jesus 
Christ, and says with the Baptist: u Behold the 
Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world" ; 
or with St. Paul: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christy 
and thou shalt be saved"; or with Christ Himself: 
"If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him 
that believeth"; "Whosoever believeth in Him shall 
not perish, but have everlasting life. " 

She remembers that Jesus said to the publican, 
who confessed his sins to God, not to a priest, 
"This man went down to his house justified," and, 
therefore, she bids her children go directly to their 
Father in Heaven with their sins and shortcomings. 
She remembers that the same Jesus said to the 
broken-hearted penitent who wept at His feet, 
"Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace," and, 

1 Hooker's Works, vol. iii., p. 489. Oxford, 1865. 



192 Romanism in the Light of History 

therefore, she teaches sinful men and women to 
repent, as she repented, in sorrow and shame, for- 
saking their sins, and casting themselves at Jesus' 
feet for pardon; and she certifies them that, so 
doing, they shall obtain like assurance that they, 
too, are saved by faith, and "may go in peace 1 ' — 
fully and freely forgiven. She exhorts the peni- 
tent sinner to receive the sacraments, as "sure 
witnesses and effectual signs of grace," but she 
repudiates utterly the idea of justification by the 
sacraments. She authorizes her ministers to 
"declare and pronounce" absolution and remission 
of sins to all who truly repent ; but not as a judicial 
but a ministerial act — judging that no human 
priesthood is now to stand as a necessary medium 
between man and God. She teaches that "we 
are accounted righteous before God only for the 
merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by 
faith, and not for our own works or deservings, " x 
and concludes that "the doctrine of justification 
by faith only is most wholesome and full of 
comfort.' ' 

Such is the Protestant explanation of the way of 
salvation. Any one who reads the New Testa- 
ment candidly cannot but see that it is the doc- 
trine of Christ and His Apostles. 

But the Roman Catholic theologians denounce 
this central doctrine of the Reformation in un- 
measured terms. "I do not know, " says a recent 
assailant, "any more immoral theory than this. 

1 Article XI. 



Protestant Principles 193 

I do not know anything which leads more directly 
to carelessness of life." 1 And the reason he gives 
for this is that the Reformers held that good works 
were not possible nor were they necessary. 

Now, you may judge of the truth of this last 
statement by simply opening your Prayer Books, 
and turning to the Xllth Article, which declares 
that although "good works cannot put away our 
sins and endure the severity of God's judgment, 
yet they are pleasing and acceptable to God in 
Christ, and do spring out necessarily of a true and 
lively faith; insomuch that by them a lively faith 
may be as evidently known as a tree discerned by 
the fruit. " 

Remember that the Articles of the Church of 
England are in harmony with the Augsburg 
Confession and the other principal Protestant 
Confessions on the Continent, and you will see 
that the reverse of what this accuser affirms is true. 
The words of Hooker are apposite here : 

"It is a childish cavil wherewith in the matter of 
justification our adversaries do so greatly please 
themselves, exclaiming that we tread all Christian 
virtues under our feet, and require nothing in Chris- 
tians but faith, because we teach that faith alone 
justifieth, whereas we, by this speech, never meant 
to exclude either hope or charity from being always 
joined as inseparable mates with faith in the man that 
is justified, or works from being added as necessary 
duties, required at the hands of every justified man, 

1 Results of the Protestant Reformation, p. 8. 



194 Romanism in the Light of History 

but to show that faith is the only hand which putteth 
on Christ unto justification, and Christ the only 
garment which, being so put on, covereth the shame 
of our defiled natures, hideth the imperfections of 
our works, preserveth us blameless in the sight of 
God, before whom, otherwise, the very weakness 
of our faith was cause sufficient to make us culpable, 
yea, to shut us out from the Kingdom of Heaven/ ' 
where nothing that is not absolute can enter. x 

Again : 

" What, then, is the fault of the Church of Rome? 
Not that she requireth works at their hands that will 
be saved, but that she attributeth unto works a power 
of satisfying God for sin, and a virtue to merit both 
grace here and in heaven glory. 2 " 

The charge, therefore, that the Reformers 
denied that good works were possible, though true, 
if by "good" is meant absolutely pure and without 
imperfection, is false in the sense intended in this 
discussion — that is, the ordinary popular sense of 
the word. And the other charge, that they denied 
that good works were necessary to salvation, 
though true in the sense that they have no part in 
justification, is also false in the only sense in which 
it has any force to prove this charge against Protes- 
tantism. In other words, the quotations by which 
this charge is sought to be substantiated have no 
relevancy, and in reality lend no support to the 
charge, and no educated theologian could have 

1 Works, iii., p. 530. 2 Works, iii., pp. 531-32. 



Protestant Principles 195 

been ignorant that to quote them for such a pur- 
pose was disingenuous and dishonest. But per- 
haps a Roman Catholic disputant is not so much to 
blame as other men for " paltering in a double 
sense, " since his Church, which he believes in- 
fallible, has canonized the ethical writer who 
teaches that it is lawful to equivocate and to 
confirm your equivocation with an oath! 

Before leaving this division of my subject, I may 
call attention to a curious inconsistency of the 
Roman Catholic theologians. They are horrified 
at the notion of the imputation of the righteousness of 
Christ to the believer (a doctrine, by the way, not 
held by all Protestants), and yet one of their own 
popes (who, of course, was infallible!) — I mean 
Gregory VII. — declared that "every rightly ap- 
pointed Pope becomes a saint through the imputed 
merits of St. Peter. " It became, therefore, and is 
to-day, the doctrine of the Church of Rome that 
every Pope is holy and infallible, "but his holiness 
is imputed, not inherent, so that if he have no 
merits of his own he inherits those of his predeces- 
sor, St. Peter." 1 

But the controversialists of the Church of Rome 
allege that the practice as well as the theory of the 
Reformers was immoral, and that one of the first 
great results of the Reformation was a general 
depravation of morals. 

This is the terrible accusation. What is the 
proof? 

1 See The Pope and the Council, pp. 92-93. 



196 Romanism in the Light of History 

First. They point to the Anabaptists and other 
fanatical Antinomian sects in the sixteenth cen- 
tury, and declare them to have been the " genuine 
children of the Reformation. "* But how can this 
be maintained, in the face of the well-known fact 
that Luther and all the leaders of the Reformation 
denounced and opposed them to the uttermost? 

And if the springing up of heretical sects after 
the Reformation proves that that movement could 
not be from God, we are bound, by parity of 
reason, to conclude that Christianity itself was not 
from God, because even in the Apostles' days 
11 damnable heresies" arose; and when Justin 
Martyr came to write his Apology, about fifty 
years after the death of St. John, their name was 
already legion. Let it be also borne in mind that 
that which happened to the doctrine of the Reform- 
ers respecting justification by faith only, is the 
same thing which happened to the doctrine of St. 
Paul (from whom, indeed, they derived it), as 
St. Peter records, where he says that they which 
were unlearned and unstable wrested his teaching, 
as they did, also, the other Scriptures, unto their 
own destruction (2 Pet. iii. 16); as St. Jude also 
declares, where he says that certain ungodly men 
had crept in unawares who turned the grace of 
God into lasciviousness (verse 4) ; and as St. John 
also clearly implies, where he warns his " little 
children, " ' 'Let no man deceive you: he that doeth 
righteousness is righteous' ' (1 John iii. 7). 

1 Results, etc., p. 14. 



Protestant Principles 197 

If the charge in question, then, is good against 
Protestantism, it is equally good against Chris^ 
tianity itself, so far as this part of the alleged 
proof goes. 

Secondly. It is alleged that the Reformers 
themselves acknowledged the awful corruption of 
morals which followed the Reformation; and 
passages are quoted from Luther, Melanchthon, 
Bucer, and others, lamenting over the impiety and 
ungodliness and profligacy of the people. Could 
anything be more irrelevant? One might as well 
quote the lamentations of Isaiah and Jeremiah over 
the wickedness of Judah as a proof that Judaism 
was not of Divine origin; or the awful catalogue 
of the crimes of his day, which the Apostle Paul 
gives in the first chapter of Romans, in proof of the 
proposition, "The Christian religion was not a 
Divine revelation." What ought to have been 
shown to serve this purpose was that this state of 
morals grew out of the Reformation. The accusa- 
tion falls, because the accuser fails to connect the 
accused with the crime, a rather essential point in 
order to conviction. 

It is true that it is asserted that the Reformation 
was immediately followed by "an immorality and 
a lewdness such as the world had not known since 
pagan days." 1 But even if this assertion were 
true (which it is not), it would still be necessary 
to show that there was no other cause out of which 
this state of things could have grown. 

1 Id., p. 20. 



198 Romanism in the Light of History 

Thirdly. The personal character of the Reform- 
ers is impugned. Now, Protestants do not build 
their doctrine upon them. Their only foundation 
is Christ and His Apostles. On these our Church 
is built. From the Reformers we received the 
Bible in our own tongue and the liberty to read it ; 
but we do not acknowledge them as apostles or 
Popes. The Protestant churches own no head but 
Christ. Hence they could not be shaken by this 
charge, even if it were true. 

I shall, therefore, make but one remark, and 
that concerns the only specification which this 
pamphlet contains to support its allegation on this 
head, viz. : that the priests and nuns who identified 
themselves with the Reformation violated their 
vows of celibacy by marrying. It is enough, with 
Bishop Jewel, to reply that these men and women 
had been taught by the Pope's own decrees — 
u That thou hast unadvisedly vowed y see thou do it 
not." 1 

This, then, is all the evidence brought forward. 
I submit that it is entirely inadequate to sustain so 
grievous a charge. 

But it is time to turn from the accused to the 
accuser. What is the character of this Church, 
whose champions bring against Protestantism this 
slanderous accusation? What has been its theory 
and practice in the domain of morals? Let us 
see. 

1 Works, vol. iv., p. 566. Oxford, 1848. 



Protestant Principles 199 

1st. As to her theory of morals. 

Of this you may judge by the fact that, in the 
year 1839, Alphonsus Liguori was canonized by 
the Church of Rome, and his works recommended 
to her people for their instruction, the Papal Bull 
declaring that they do not contain " one word 
worthy of censure. " 

Yet this writer says " it is a common and certain 
opinion among all divines that it is lawful to use 
equivocation in common conversation, and to 
confirm it by an oath. " x He also justifies dis- 
simulation, 2 and holds that oaths, contrary to the 
interests of the Church, are perjuries, not oaths, 
and that it is lawful to " induce another to com- 
mit a less evil that he may be impeded from a 
greater." 3 

This is sufficient to serve our purpose. Cer- 
tainly, so far as the theory of morals is concerned, it 
may be said to the Church of Rome: " First cast 
out the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt 
thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy 
brother's eye" (St. Matt. vii. 5). 

2d. As to her practice. 

Two centuries before the Reformation, a promi- 
nent Roman Catholic prelate, Bishop Durandus, 
of Mende, wrote of the papal court as follows: 

"It is always sending out into the various dioceses 
immoral clerks (i. e., clergy), provided with benefices, 

1 Moral Theology, vol. ii., p. 118. Venice, 1828. 

2 Vol. i., p. 364. 3 Vol. ii., p. 120. 



200 Romanism in the Light of History 

whom the bishops are obliged to receive, while they 
have no persons fit for the work of the Church. It is 
continually extorting large sums from prelates, to be 
shared between the Pope and his cardinals, and by 
this simony is corrupting the Universal Church to 
the utmost of its power. x " 

This, remember, is the language of a man whose 
loyalty to the Church is unsuspected — of a man, 
indeed, who believed in the Pope's absolute domin- 
ion over the kings of the earth. His testimony 
does not stand alone. It is only one note in a 
vast chorus of accusations which for centuries 
before Luther had been heard in all parts of Chris- 
tendom. It was not Milton, the Protestant poet, 
but Dante, the Roman Catholic, the immortal 
author of The Divine Comedy, who applied to the 
popes the apocalyptic prophecy of the Harlot of 
the Seven Hills, drunken with the blood of the 
saints. And where had he learned this interpre- 
tation? Not from some Protestant or heretical 
commentator, but from an illustrious Roman 
Catholic divine, a cardinal, a general of his order, a 
saint, a man held in high honor at Rome, who, 
nevertheless, in his commentary on the Apocalypse 
applied that famous prophecy to Rome. 

St. Bonaventure it is who declares that "the 
prelates, corrupted by Rome, infect the clergy with 
their vices; and the clergy, by their evil example 
of avarice^ and profligacy, poison and lead to 
perdition the whole Christian people. " 2 

1 See The Pope and the Council, p. 181. a Id., 184. 



Protestant Principles 201 

Alvaro Pelayo, another highly honored bishop, 
and Petrarch, another famous Italian poet, give 
testimony equally as strong in language of terrible 
severity. 

And long before their time the voice of the great 
St. Bernard had been raised to rebuke the tyranny 
and oppression of the popes; while St. Hildegard, 
the prophetess of the Rhine, rebuked their pride 
and predicted their humiliation. Two centuries 
after her, St. Bridget, the great prophetess of the 
North, cried aloud, in the name of the Lord: "O 
Pope, thou art worse than Lucifer; more unjust 
than Pilate ; more of a foe to me than Judas ; more 
of an abomination to me than the Jews them- 
selves. ,,J 

As in the fourteenth century, so also in the 
fifteenth. Bishops and abbots and theologians 
cried out almost in despair at the corruption into 
which the Church had fallen, and, above all, the 
shameless abuses, oppressions, impieties of the 
popes and their courts. A Roman Catholic writer 
of the present century says : 

There is something almost enigmatical about the 
universal profligacy of that age. In whole dioceses 
and countries of Christian Europe clerical concubi- 
nage was so general that it no longer excited any 
surprise. 2 Every one who came from Rome brought 
back word that in the metropolis of Christendom, and 

1 Mansi, torn, xxx., pp. 715-18. See The Church's Creed, or, 
The Crown's Creed. E. S. Ffoulkes, B.D. Pott & Amery, 1869. 
3 The Pope and the Council, p. 280. 



202 Romanism in the Light of History 

in the bosom of the great mother and mistress of all 
churches, the clergy, with scarcely an exception, kept 
concubines. 1 

In the sixteenth century — the Reformation era 
— matters were just as bad. When the Lateran 
Council assembled in 15 16, Cardinal Pucci said 
publicly: "Rome, the Roman prelates, and the 
bishops daily sent forth from Rome, are the joint 
causes of the manifold errors and corruptions in the 
Church. Unless we recover our good fame, which 
is almost wholly lost, it is all up with us. " 

It was in this period that Pope Leo X., to re- 
plenish his exhausted treasury, sent out his legates 
into different parts of Europe with stores of indul- 
gences to be sold to the people according to a fixed 
tariff, which set the price for every transgression 
and for absolution from the worst sins, murder, 
incest, and the like. It was this shameful traffic, 
whereby sins and crimes were made matter of 
bargain and sale, which precipitated the Reforma- 
tion in Germany. 2 

Later, when the Council of Trent met, the very 

1 Id., p. 281. And "when the vicar of Innocent VIII. wanted 
to forbid this, the Pope made him withdraw his edict, * Propter 
quod talis effecta est vita sacerdotum et curialum ut vix reperia- 
tur qui concubinam non retineat, vel saltern meretricem.' " 

2 Ex-Governor Axtell, of New Mexico, reports that the Jesuits 
in that Territory are in the habit of granting indulgences, to 
such as can pay for them, for incestuous marriages. A conflict 
arose with the civil authority because of objection by it to these 
indulgences. {Standard of the Cross, a weekly paper no longer 
published.) 



Protestant Principles 203 

first speech was in the same strain, denouncing 
the cruelty, the avarice, the pride, and devastation 
wrought by the Italian bishops. It was said that 
even Luther never spoke more severely. 

And now let us clinch all this testimony by 
evidence, which must certainly be infallible, viz.: 
the confession of a Pope. 

11 You will say [said Adrian VI. 1 to his legate] that 
we frankly admit that God has permitted this judg- 
ment to fall upon His Church for the sins of men, 
chiefly priests and prelates of the Church. . . . We 
know that in this holy seat there have been many 
enormities now for some years past and abuses in 
spiritual things, ... all things, in short, perverted.' ' 

So honest a Pope could not long be tolerated in 
Rome. He died, it is said, by poison, in 1523. 

Such is the picture which the Church of Rome 
presented at the time of the Reformation and for 
several hundred years previous. Several ques- 
tions present themselves : 

1. If the immorality and irreligion which 
prevailed in Europe after the Reformation were 
the results of that great movement, whence came 
the immorality and irreligion which preceded the 
Reformation, and which had its chief source and 
its most hideous example in Rome itself? 

1 The last non-Italian Pope; ruled only one year, 1522; a man 
of ascetic piety. He openly confessed, through his legate at the 
Diet of Nurnberg, that the Church was corrupt and diseased from 
the Pope to the members. See Schaff , Creeds of Christendom, vol. 
i., p. 92. 



204 Romanism in the Light of History 

2. If the alleged immorality of the Reformers 
proves that the Reformation was from beneath 
and not from above, what does the known and 
notorious wickedness of the Romish hierarchy 
during long centuries, sometimes even in the 
papal chair itself, prove regarding the Church of 
Rome? 

3. If the Reformation is discredited by the 
fact that Luther renounced the celibate state, 
which God did not ordain, and entered into the 
married state, which God did ordain, what is to 
be thought of a church which has been presided 
over by dissolute boys like John XII. and Benedict 
IX., sitting in the papal chair, 1 especially when it 
is remembered that the Protestant Church does 
not rest upon the Reformers, but on Christ, and 
that it lays no claim to infallibility, whereas the 
Roman Catholic Church is built upon the Pope, 
who is called the Vicar of Christ, yea, even the 
Vice-God, 2 whom all men are required to believe 
and obey? 

4. May not Protestants, in view of the dark 
history of the papacy, a leaf of which I have opened 
to-night, be excused for reminding their Roman 
Catholic critics of the precept of our Lord: " First 
cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then 

^ohn XII., "the most dissolute of his race," ascended the 
papal throne at the age of 18 (A.D. 955). Benedict IX. (A.D. 
!033)> on his accession, was "a boy of only twelve years of age, 
but an adept in the most infamous vices. " (See Kurtz's History 
of Christian Church, sec. 126, 1.) 

2 So Bellarmine. 



Protestant Principles 205 

shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of 
thy brother's eye?" 

I leave you to answer these questions for your- 
selves, and by your answer to form your opinion 
of this latest attack upon our Protestant religion. 
You will be able then to judge of the sophistry 
which Rome's champions seldom scruple to employ, 
and to determine what value is to be attached to 
the arguments or allegations of controversialists, 
who — being members of a church which sanctions 
equivocation, dissimulation, and the disregard of 
oaths, which offers to the highest bidder the bene- 
fits of her alleged power over the issues of the future 
life, which has over and again sold indulgences to 
men according to a fixed tariff, which has exhibited 
in her hierarchy the most appalling ungodliness, 
claiming all the while infallibility — yet presume to 
arraign Protestantism as the fruitful mother of 
immorality. I 

1 See Note A on " The Moral Results of Romanism. " 



Ill 

SOCIETY — THE CHURCH — THE CREED 

"Behold, thou art . . . confident that thou thyself art a guide of 
the blind, a light of them which are in darkness, an instructor of the 
foolish, a teacher of babes, which hast the form of knowledge and of 
the truth in the law; thou therefore which teachest another, teachest 
thou not thyself? . . . Thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit 
sacrilege? Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking 
the law dishonor est thou God." — Romans ii. 17, 19-23. 

I TOOK occasion to point out in my last lecture 
that some of the " results" attributed to the 
great movement called the Reformation might, with 
equal justice, have been ascribed to Christianity 
itself upon its introduction into the world. Sec- 
tarianism and Antinomianism, it is asserted, fol- 
lowed hard upon the Reformation. Suppose it be 
granted, we reply : The same phenomena marked 
the planting of the Christian religion ; as, for in- 
stance, in the case of the early Gnostic sects, which 
even in the apostolic age caricatured and corrupted 
Christianity, turning the grace of God into lasciv- 
iousness, and calling forth rebukes from St. Paul, St. 
Jude, and St. John, very much as the Antinomian 
heresies of the Reformation period excited the 
indignant protest of the principal Reformers. 

206 



Protestant Principles 207 

Allow me to cite another historic parallel as an 
introduction to my remarks this evening. It 
relates to some other of the accusations brought 
against Protestants and the religion of Protestants 
by Roman Catholic orators and writers. It may 
be some consolation to us, in advance of the refuta- 
tion of these accusations, to be reminded that the 
same or similar charges were brought against 
Christianity itself in the first ages of our era. A 
religion without altars, without images, without 
sacrifices, without a priesthood, seemed to the 
Roman mind of the first ages very much as Pro- 
testantism seems to the Roman Catholic mind of 
this age — a godless religion. It was denounced 
then, as Protestantism is denounced to-day, as 
destructive of morality, of society, and of faith. 
"Away with the atheists V was the popular cry 
against the Christians in the reigns of Trajan, 
Hadrian, and the Antonines. u Away with Protes- 
tantism! it leads logically to infidelity," is the cry 
of the partisans of Rome to-day. The one was 
the cry of paganism; the other is the cry of a 
corrupt form of Christianity which, in its leading 
features, is an unnatural compromise between 
pagan and Christian ideas, fitly symbolized by that 
statue of Jupiter which one sees in Rome to-day 
doing service as a statue of St. Peter. And the 
fact that among these foes of Protestantism are 
many men of character, of intelligence, and of 
learning, finds a parallel in the well-known and 
equally remarkable fact that the best of the 



2o8 Romanism in the Light of History 

Roman emperors, as well as the greatest of their 
moralists, were, as a rule, hostile to Christianity. 

Bearing these parallels in mind, lest we should 
be overwhelmed by the very grave opprobrium 
cast upon our religion by such reverend and 
learned divines, let us take heart to examine some 
of these accusations. 

I. And first let us consider the charge that 
Protestantism is destructive of society. How is this 
count in the indictment sustained? 

1st. By the assertion that some of the Reform- 
ers taught the doctrine of the divine right of 
kings in the extremest sense, encouraging them to 
believe themselves absolute autocrats ; while others, 
on the contrary, served their ends by proclaiming 
the opposite doctrine of the absolute right of 
revolution. But how does this assertion consist 
with the undeniable fact that England, which is 
the most conspicuous and pronounced of Protes- 
tant countries, is also the most conspicuous 
example, not of absolute despotism, but of a limited 
monarchy, and that no country of Europe has 
been so free from internal conflict and revolution 
for the last two hundred years? According to the 
logic of this assertion, Catholic France, R. Catholic 
Spain, and R. Catholic Mexico should be the models 
of stable government, where kings and emperors 
have never dreamed of exercising despotic power, 
and where revolutions and tumults have been 
unknown. Unhappily for the Roman Catholic 
disputants, the logic of facts conducts us to quite 



Protestant Principles 209 

a different opinion ; and the generality of mankind 
obstinately adhere to this rather than the other 
logic, and persist in thinking investments safer in 
Protestant London than in R. Catholic Madrid, in 
Protestant America than in R. Catholic Mexico ! 

2d. Pass we to the second specification alleged 
in support of this charge. The Reformation " ob- 
literated the religious element from society"; it 
14 divorced society from God. " And how were 
these dire results brought about? The answer is 
very significant: u by destroying the Church as the 
arbiter of right and wrong to the nations. " " When 
the Church was removed there was no teacher to 
instruct mankind, no pacificator to stand between 
nation and nation, or between the governor and the 
governed" 1 - 

In the light of this language one sees that to 
divorce society from God means to divorce it from 
the Roman Catholic Church — L e., to deprive that 
Church of the right to be the arbiter of the nations. 
This Protestantism has done, and for this it should 
receive the gratitude of mankind. For this we 
make no apology. 

Allow me to give a few illustrations of the way 
in which the Papacy — and the Papacy is the 
Church— exercised this office of arbiter of nations 
before the wicked Protestants deprived her of this 
function. They will serve to show you what 
Rome's ideal of society is from which the modern 
world has unhappily departed. 

1 Results of the Protestant Reformation, p. 21. 



210 Romanism in the Light of History 

Pope Gregory IX., 1 resting upon the " Donation 
of Constantine," which was a forgery, 2 asserted 
his absolute dominion over the state, declaring 
that the Pope is properly lord and master of the 
whole world, while kings and emperors only exer- 
cise a delegated power — delegated, that is to say, 
by the popes. Innocent IV. declared that secular 
princes derived their commission from the Pope. 
As late as the sixteenth century, Paul IV. issued a 
Bull, 3 ex cathedrd, with the assent and signature 
of his cardinals, affirming (i) that the Pope has 
full authority and power over nations and king- 
doms; (2) that all princes and monarchs falling 
into heresy or schism are ipso facto irrevocably 
deposed, deprived for ever of all rights of govern- 
ment, and incur sentence of death. If, however, 
they repent, they are to be " imprisoned in a 

1 He writes to Emperor Fredk. II., Oct., 1236 : " It is notorious 
that Constantine, to whom belonged universal monarchy, wished 
that the Vicar of Christ . . . should also possess the government 
of corporeal things in the whole world. " (See the passage quoted 
at length in Letters to His Holiness Pius X.by a Modernist, p. 139.) 
2 "Ah! Constantine; to how much ill gave birth, 
Not thy conversion, but those rich domains 
That the first wealthy Pope received of thee!" 

"So Dante described, in the bitterness of his heart, what he 
believed to be the origin of the Pope's temporal sovereignty. 
And even when the progress of criticism had taught the next great 
Italian poet to place the Donation of Constantine in the moon 
amongst the things which have never been, the ecclesiastical 
historians of Rome still clung to such shreds of truth as the story 
contained, even at the risk of making the papal power the price 
of an absolution for the murder of a son, a nephew, and a wife. " 
(Stanley's Eastern Churches, Lect. VI., p. 205.) 

3 Viz., that entitled "Cum ex Apostolatus Officio." 



Protestant Principles 211 

monastery, and to do penance on bread and water 
for the remainder of their life" ; (3) that none may- 
give aid to an heretical prince, "not even the 
mere services of common humanity"; . . . "any 
monarch who does so forfeits his dominions and 
property." All this was reaffirmed by Pius V.; 
and in 1627 another Bull of Urban VIII. promul- 
gated the same doctrine in even stronger terms. 
It is, therefore, the formally declared and often 
reiterated doctrine of the Church of Rome, a 
doctrine promulgated solemnly and ex cathedrd 
by several of her popes, that civil rulers are the 
dependents and vassals of the pope, who has full 
power to depose monarchs, absolve subjects from 
their allegiance, hand over countries to invasion, 
and deprive princes and peoples of their property. 
This is Rome's ideal of society ! This is her model 
of civil order! It is true she does not now attempt 
to exercise this supreme and universal jurisdiction, 
but this is, as the Jesuit theologians explain, 
because it is not at present possible to exercise it. 
The doctrine, however, remains unchanged. They 
still affirm the power of the Church to inflict civil 
and corporal punishment, yea, fines, fasts, imprison- 
ment, and scourging. 1 

Her practice, moreover, has been true to her 
theory. I have already reminded you that Pope 

1 So the Jesuits, Schneeman and Schrader. So La Civilta, 
Jesuit organ at Rome, 1854, v °l- v ii-» P- 603. The late Pope 
Pius IX., on several occasions, sanctioned the same doctrine. 
The famous Syllabus of 1864 formulated it. (See The Pope and 
the Council, ch. i.) 



212 Romanism in the Light of History 

Innocent III. declared the Magna Charta null and 
void, and excommunicated the barons who ob- 
tained it. That is one out of many examples. 
To lay whole nations under interdict, to deprive 
them of worship and sacraments, was not sufficient. 
Cities and states were outlawed or given up to 
plunder and slavery, as, for instance, Venice, by 
Clement V. Excommunication to the seventh 
generation, the razing of cities, and the transporta- 
tion of their inhabitants — these are specimens of 
the exercise of this power by the popes. Martin 
IV. placed King Pedro of Arragon under interdict, 
promised indulgences for their sins to all who 
should fight against him, and finally declared his 
kingdom forfeited, and made it over, for a yearly 
tribute, to Charles of Valois. Gregory VII., the 
first to attempt dethroning kings and absolving 
subjects of their allegiance, declared in the year 
1080 as follows: "We desire to show the world 
that we can give or take away at our will king- 
doms, duchies, earldoms, in a word, the possessions 
of all men, for we can bind and loose." 1 And 
Gratian, the famous canonist, urges that, since 
Pope Urban II. "had declared any one who should 
kill an excommunicated person out of zeal to the 
Church to be by no means a murderer," it was 
thence to be concluded that the "bad" are "not 
only to be scourged but executed." 2 

1 Mansi, xx., 536, quoted in The Pope and the Council, p. 89. 
And compare Barrow on The Pope's Supremacy, p. 68. New 
York, 1834. 2 Id., p. 120. 



Protestant Principles 213 

The dark and terrible history of the Inquisition, 
with its cruel instruments of torture and death — 
the pulley, "by which persons were hoisted up to 
the ceiling with, a weight attached to the feet, and 
then suddenly allowed to fall to the ground with a 
jerk which dislocated the joints"; the rack, "by 
which the frame was distorted and lacerated"; 
the chafing dish, u by which persons were stretched 
on the back, and a slow fire applied to the soles of 
the feet " ; and if these did not bring the heretic to 
recant, then the sword, the axe, and the fagot of 
the civil magistrate were ready to do their work — 
this, I say, may serve as another illustration of the 
way in which the Church of Rome has put her 
theory into practice. And it is the Inquisition 
which the Papal organ at Rome described in 1855 
as "a sublime spectacle of social perfection!" 
(La Civilta Cattolica.) 

It is tolerably clear, in the light of these typical 
facts, in what sense the Church of Rome once 
stood " between nation and nation, between the 
governor and the governed," and how she once 
exercised, and would again exercise, if she could, 
the office of " arbiter of right and wrong to the 
nations." Nor is it at all difficult to understand 
why her wrath should wax hot against Protes- 
tantism for emancipating Christendom from this 
bondage to the papal throne. Interpreted by 
these historical facts, her reproach becomes the 
highest encomium. If tl social perfection," as 
Rome understands it, is exemplified in the In- 



214 Romanism in the Light of History 

quisition, then God be praised for the movement 
which helped to ' 'destroy' ' that model of ' ' society ' ' ! 
If the presence of "the religious element' ' in 
society means — as for Rome it does mean — the 
dark shadow of the papacy over every monarch's 
throne and every magistrate's seat, then should the 
nations of the earth rise up and call the Reformers 
blessed if, indeed, they " obliterated " it. If to 
" divorce society from God" signifies, in Roman 
phrase, the same thing as to divorce it from the 
ecclesiastic who pretends to be the Vicar of Christ, 
whom Bellarmine called "the vice-God," and 
whose pretensions establish in him so strong a 
resemblance to the "Man of Sin," "the son of 
perdition" of whom St. Paul prophesied "that he, 
as God, sitting in the temple of God, would show 
himself that he is God" 1 (2 Thess. ii., 3, 4), then, 
I say, if the Reformers severed this unholy alliance 
they performed a work similar to that which the 
Prophet Elijah performed when he emancipated 
the House of Israel from the service of the strange 
gods which Jezebel had set up ; and every Christian 
as well as every patriot should delight to do them 
honor for so great and holy a work. 

II. I pass to the consideration of another 
charge, viz., that the Protestant Reformation has 
been " destructive of the Christian Church. 1 ' Why, 

1 Christophorus Marcellus thus addressed Julius II. at the 
Council of the Lateran, A.D. 1512 : " Tu enim pastor, tu medicus, 
tu gubernator, tu cultor, tu denique alter Deus in terris." (See 
Gieseler, Eccl. iii., Hist., p. 267.) (See also Labbei et Cossartii 
Concilia, xiv., p. 109.) 



Protestant Principles 215 

or in what way? Because the Reformers took the 
stand "that the Church had erred in faith." 1 

Our Roman controversialist exults in the " con- 
tradictions in terms that are to be found in the 
assertion of the error of the Church of Christ,' ' and 
proceeds to settle the matter by a redoubtable 
piece of ratiocination, which I will quote: "What 
can be more plain than this? That is not the 
Church of Christ which teaches error. But if the 
Church of Christ can teach error, then, according 
to the assumption, it is the Church of Christ and 
it is not the Church of Christ at one and the same 
moment." 

We answer, there is at least one thing "more 
plain" than this precious piece of logic, viz.: that 
it is built, as so much Jesuit logic is built, and as 
the Church of Rome herself is built, upon an 
assumption. The "pillar and ground" of this 
argument is the major premise; it is a fine pillar, 
no doubt, but, unfortunately, it rests on the sand. 
It is an assumption, pure and simple, to say that 
the Church of Christ cannot teach error. 2 How 
do we know it? Not from the Scriptures certainly, 
for they teach emphatically that churches both 
can err and have erred. The Jewish Church, by 
its hierarchy, frequently erred, notably in our 
Lord's day, when the Scribes and Pharisees, though 
they sat in Moses' seat, taught for doctrines the 
commandments of men. The Seven Churches of 

1 Results of the Protestant Reformation, p. 28. 

2 See Note B. 



216 Romanism in the Light of History 

Asia Minor erred, as we read at large in the second 
and third chapters of Revelation. And in the 
Epistle to the Romans it is explicitly taught that 
the Church of Rome might err : 

"If God spared not the natural branches, take heed 
lest he also spare not thee. Behold therefore the 
goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, 
severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue 
in his goodness: otherwise, thou also shalt be cut off 11 
(Rom. xi. 21, 22). 

But we are referred to the words of Christ: 
"The gates of Hell shall not prevail against it." 1 
But how is it made out that this promise, or pro- 
phecy implies that the Church of Christ cannot err? 
Why should it imply infallibility, and not im- 
peccability? In a word, why pervert an assurance 
of final victory for the Church over the powers of 
darkness into a promise that it should never err? 
Assuming this equivalence of two propositions 
quite distinct from each other — (viz.: "that the 
Church of Christ shall be victorious in its contest 
with Satan's kingdom"; and "that the Church of 
Christ shall never err in any matter of faith") — 
our disputant draws the conclusion that to assert 

1 1 observe a very serious error in quotation on page 29 of 
The Results of the Protestant Reformation. Christ is represented to 
have said of His Church: "I will guide it into all truth"; — but 
what He did say was: "He (the Holy Ghost) shall guide you into 
all truth" — a promise addressed to all the Apostles, and, there- 
fore, lending no support to the dogma that St. Peter had 
authority and prerogatives beyond the rest of the Apostolic 
College. 



Protestant Principles 217 

that the Church has erred is to assert that Christ 
broke His word, and hence is not worthy of con- 
fidence, at the same time that men are called upon 
by Protestants to believe that He is worthy of 
confidence, and to accept a new Christianity at His 
hands. x 

And he marvels "how a logical mind can fail to 
see the utter inconsistency of such theories as 
these. " Perhaps "a logical mind" would suggest 
to the controversialist that no conclusion can be 
any stronger than its premises, and that his 
conclusion being based on an assumption, must of 
necessity, so far as the argument goes, be itself 
an assumption. Perhaps, also, the same "logical 
mind" would state the argument a little 
differently: "You say the Church of Christ can- 
not err. But the Church of Rome has certainly 
erred, since she has taught contradictions, as when 
one pope decided that the marriage tie is dissolved 
if either party shall become heretical, and another 
annulled this decision. 

"Therefore, according to the assumption, the 
Church of Rome cannot be the Church of Christ. " 

The "logical mind" may go on to suggest, also, 
several "utter inconsistencies" which no sound 
reasoner can "fail to see": "You say to teach 
the error of the Church is to destroy the Church, 
and so to break down "the pillar and ground of 
truth," for "a fallible teacher is no teacher at 
all" (p. 31). 

1 Results of the Protestant Reformation, p. 30. 



218 Romanism in the Light of History 

''But your Church, which you say is infallible, 
has, as I have just reminded you, by the mouth of 
her Popes taught the world contradictory doctrines. 
For instance: Innocent I. and Gelasius I. taught 
that it was indispensable for infants to receive 
communion; but Pius IV. imposed a creed which 
binds the decrees of the Council of Trent on the 
Church; and one of these anathematizes the doc- 
trine of the two Popes just referred to! If the 
last pope was not a fallible teacher, then the other 
Popes were. But, if they were not, he was. Evi- 
dently your Church, therefore is a fallible teacher 
in either case, and yet you claim for her infalli- 
bility!" 

U A fallible teacher is no teacher at all!" Then 
what sort of a teacher was the Church of Rome 
when, by her mouthpiece, Sixtus V., she sent forth 
an edition of the Bible which was ordered to be 
used as the only true and genuine one, under pain 
of excommunication forbidding the change even of 
a single word, since he had corrected it with his 
own hand ; and yet this very Bible of Sixtus was so 
full of blunders (two thousand of which had been 
introduced by the Pope's own hand), that the new 
Pope found it necessary to call in all the copies of 
it that could be found, and issue a new and cor- 
rected edition ! One of these Popes was certainly 
" fallible. " But "a fallible teacher is no teacher 
at all." Yet, " according to the assumption," 
the Popes are all infallible heads of an infallible 
Church! Here, surely, is an inconsistency no 



Protestant Principles 219 

" logical mind" can "fail to see." And, since 
"a fallible teacher is no teacher at all," they who 
exhibit their fallibility by so glaring an inconsis- 
tency cannot complain if we decline to accept them 
as teachers. 

III. The third and last charge against Protes- 
tantism which I shall notice this evening is that it 
is "destructive of the Christian creed and of faith. 11 
In the first place, the Roman Catholic disputant 
proves this by an a priori argument. Private 
judgment destroys the possibility of a creed. If 
every man is to judge for himself, then of necessity 
there must be "as many creeds as individuals." 
And yet, while he asserts this, he himself is ap- 
pealing to private judgment. All his arguments 
against Protestantism are addressed to private 
judgment. If, then, we may judge of these ques- 
tions, why not of others? Why not of the whole 
circle of Christian doctrine? "So that," as 
Chillingworth well says, "for aught I can see, 
judges we are, and must be of all sides, every one 
for himself, and God for us all. " x 

Again, it is argued against us that, on our prin- 
ciples, there is no possibility of exercising faith, 
"for faith is the belief in that which God delivers 
to man, " and Protestants cannot tell whether God 
has made any revelation or no, because they have 
no external infallible authority. But we answer, 
yes — we have such an authority in the Holy Scrip- 
tures. To this the Romanist rejoins that we 

1 Works, p. 152. London, 1836. 



220 Romanism in the Light of History 

believe the Scriptures on the authority of his 
Church, or on no authority at all. But what 
shameless assumption is this, when the fact is 
plain and incontrovertible that the Scriptures were 
committed to and possessed by all Christian 
churches alike. The great churches of the East, 
the Chaldasan, the Armenian, the Syrian, the 
Coptic, the Greek — all witness to the Scriptures 
independently of the Church of Rome. And the 
Church in Great Britain possessed and used, and 
was comforted by, the sacred volume centuries 
before Rome had either influence or authority 
in those islands. No! we do not receive the 
Scriptures on the authority of the Church of Rome, 
but upon the concurrent testimony to their apostolic 
origin and authority given by all Christian antiquity. 
The argument for their infallibility as a rule of 
faith cannot now be given; but we may fairly say 
to the Romanist : ' ' If we have no power to prove 
the Holy Scriptures to be the Word of God, then 
neither have you any power to prove your Church 
to be the Church of God. But if you may fairly 
appeal to reason — that is, to private judgment — 
and to history to prove the infallibility of your 
Church, then may we with equal right appeal to 
the same tribunals to establish the infallibility of 
the Bible in matters of faith. For we refuse to 
admit the validity of your 'vicious circle' argu- 
ment, whereby you first prove the authority of the 
Bible by the Church, and then turn round and 
prove the authority of the Church by the Bible. 



Protestant Principles 221 

This is something which cannot be done ' in logic,' 
any more than the proving the Scriptures by 
themselves. ,,I 

But what Church is this which, by the mouth 
of its accredited apologists, accuses the Protestant 
Churches of destroying the creed of Christendom? 

I answer that she has, from age to age and 
generation to generation, corrupted the Christian 
creed; that she has added article after article to 
the faith; that, as she represents it, it is different 
to-day from what it was ten years 2 ago; was 
different then from what it was before Pius IX. 
became Pope ; and that no man can tell how many 
more articles will yet be added ! 

Ten years 2 ago it was not an article of faith 

1 A clergyman of the Church of England, who had entered the 
Church of Rome, writes, after some years spent within her fold, 
as follows: "But what means has he for applying those tests 
except the ordinary reasoning faculty of all mankind, which, by 
the nature of the case, is not infallible? The whole process 
becomes a mere reasoning in a circle. If I possess a certain super- 
natural gift, I can attain an absolute certainty of the truths of 
Catholicism beyond the mere logical probability which rests 
upon historical evidence. But when I come to ask myself whether 
that gift has been granted to me, I am forced back upon the rules 
of logical probability, and thus am landed again at the precise 
point where I stood before. A person who, thus arguing, can 
persuade himself that, without possibility of doubt, he individu- 
ally possesses this divine faith, is the victim of an intellectual 
sleight of hand. He takes, as it were, a difficulty out of one 
pocket and puts it into another, and then imagines he has got rid 
of it altogether. The difficulty remains exactly what it was at 
the beginning." {Reasons for Returning to the Church of England, 
London, 1871, pp. 89, 90.) 

2 This reckoning was made in 1879. 



222 Romanism in the Light of History 

(de fide) that the Pope is infallible. To-day it is. 
Twenty-five years ago it was not an article of 
faith that the Virgin was born without sin. To- 
day it is. 

Let me give one example of wholesale additions 
to the creed. In the year 1564 no less than twelve 
new articles were added by Pius IV. in the creed 
which he then imposed upon the Church. Among 
these were the doctrine of tradition, the seven 
sacraments, the mass, purgatory, invocation and 
veneration of saints, image veneration (which, 
for the ignorant, means image worship), and 
indulgences. 

Now, by thus adding to the faith the Church 
of Rome stands self -condemned. For this act 
was in contravention of a solemn decree of one 
of the general councils which Rome acknowledges 
as of binding authority. The Council of Ephesus 
(A.D. 431) ordained that 

11 it should be lawful for no one to profess, to write, or 
to compose any other [form of] faith than that defined 
by the holy fathers, who, with the Holy Ghost, had been 
assembled at Nice [i. e., the creed called the Nicene 
Creed]. But those who shall have dared to compose 
or profess, or to offer any other [form of] faith to those 
wishing to be converted to the acknowledgment of 
the truth, whether from ^paganism, or Judaism, or 
from any sort of heresy; it decreed that if they were 
bishops or clergymen, the bishops should be deposed 
from their episcopacy and the clergy from their 
clerical office. , ' 



Protestant Principles 223 

According to their own principles, therefore, 
solemnly affirmed in their own creed, the bishops 
and clergy of the Church of Rome have incurred 
the penalty of deposition from their sacred office 
for the sin of adding to the faith! Yet they fill 
the air with outcries against Protestantism for 
having proved destructive to the faith! 1 

With quite as ill grace comes the allegation of 
dissensions among Protestants from the adherents 
of a church which has herself presented the most 
disgraceful scenes of ecclesiastical animosities, 
contentions, and factions. Pope has stood ar- 
rayed against pope, council against council, pope 
and council against Pope and council, the church 
of one age against the church of another age. 2 
Previous to 1870 no man could tell where the 

1 Dr. Preston has printed a lecture on the English Reformation, 
in which he repeats the usual charge that the Creed of the Church 
of England is " the Crown's Creed, " and not the Church's Creed. 
But, as was well pointed out a few years ago by Rev. Edmund S. 
Ffoulkes, then still a pervert to the Roman Church, this charge 
holds equally good against the Church of Rome. "Reccared, 
Charlemagne, and Henry II. prescribed a Creed for the West, 
at least as much as Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Elizabeth 
prescribed one for England." "How, after this, the Creed used 
by us both in our Liturgy [he is writing to Archbishop Manning] 
can be called the Church's Creed, and not the Crown's Creed, I 
am at a loss to comprehend; how Rome can, after this, be excul- 
pated from the charge of having succumbed to 'the Crown in 
Council? infinitely more than England, I should be pleased in all 
honesty to learn." — (A letter to the Most Rev. Archbishop 
Manning, etc., by Edmund S. Ffoulkes, B.D., pp. 15, 16. New 
York, 1869.) 

2 See this discussed by Chilling worth. Works, p. 178. Lon- 
don, 1836. 



224 Romanism in the Light of History 

vaunted gift of infallibility resided. "It resides 
in the Pope, " said some of their divines. "No, 
not in the Pope," said others, "but in the Church 
at large (a diffusive power or virtue)." "By no 
means, " exclaimed a third party; "it belongs only 
to general councils without the Pope." "You 
are all wrong," said a fourth school; "infallibility 
is only in a general council, headed by the Pope." 

Now, indeed, the controversy has been settled 
by the triumph of the Jesuits, and it must be 
confessed by every good Catholic that the Pope 
is personally infallible when he speaks ex cathedrd. 
At last, then, is there peace and unanimity, after 
so many centuries of conflict, upon the very first 
question of their whole system? Alas, no! for 
it is now debated very earnestly what those 
mysterious words ex cathedrd really imply. 

In the words of our assailant, we may say, 
" God is not the author of this confusion." These 
"variations of Romanism" prove it cannot be 
from Him ! 

I have yet to notice the assertion 1 "that the 
Protestant Reformation contains the germs of 
infidelity; that it leads to infidelity just as surely 
as premises lead to their conclusions;" and that 
"logical minds who take up the principles of the 
Reformation will of necessity become infidels." 
There is not time now to discuss this question. 
Which, however, it may be asked, is the more 

1 Dr. Preston does not pretend to prove it. See his pamphlet, 
p. 42. 



Protestant Principles 225 

likely to lead to infidelity, the system which teaches 
men that God has revealed Himself in nature and 
in the soul of man, as well as in Scripture, and 
then teaches them to seek the harmony of this 
triple revelation under the teaching of the Spirit 
of all truth — this, I say, or the system which bids 
them renounce the use of the faculties God has 
given them, and accept, without question, what 
the Church — L e., practically, what the priest — 
tells them to believe, on the ground that the 
Church is an infallible interpreter of revelation 
and judge of matters of faith? 1 

So long as men are content, or able, to shut their 
eyes and abandon their function as reasoning, 
reflecting beings, on all subjects connected with 
religion, all may go well — they may adhere to 
their faith; but when they begin to read, and to 
reason about the matter, they will be likely to dis- 
cover that this claim of infallibility is reduced 
to an absurdity by the inflexible logic of historical 
facts, and that many of the distinctive doctrines 
and practices of the Church of Rome are sub- 
versive of reason and an insult to common sense. 2 
And then, what danger will there be of a reaction, 
even to the point of abandoning all religion, since 
this which they took for the only true representa- 
tive of Christianity has proved a delusion! 3 This 

1 See Note B. 2 See Note C. 

3 See this ably discussed by Archbishop Whately in his " Dis- 
sertation on the Rise, Progress, and Corruptions of Christianity "; 
Cyclopcedia Brit., vol. i., p. 500, 8th edition. 



226 Romanism in the Light of History 

was the history of Voltaire's unbelief. Educated 
by the Jesuits, he identified Christianity with 
Romanism, and, when he saw the folly and the 
falsehood of that, rejected the Christian religion 
in toto. This was the history of Blanco White's 
skepticism. He began life a devout priest in the 
Roman Church, but, awaking to the discovery of 
the moral corruption and the intellectual absurdity 
of the system, he made utter shipwreck of faith. 
This is the history of much of the very widespread 
unbelief which exists on the continent of Europe 
to-day. 1 And even where the semblance of faith 
is preserved, the soul of it is often gone. Witness 
the testimony of an English clergyman who had 
embraced Romanism, and who says of his observa- 
tions in the rural districts of Spain : 

"On Sundays, at High Mass, the church . . was 
crammed full of men and women ... I took some 
pains to examine, but I never could discover anybody 
— man, woman, or child — in the whole congregation 
who used a book besides myself; and whatever may 
have been their inmost feelings, which I do not pre- 
tend to decipher, the countenances of the men bespoke 
nothing but listless apathy. . . . Yet this was a country 
that had remained exclusively Roman Catholic since 
its release from the Moors. 2 " 

The examples just given may serve to show how 
far and in what sense it is true, as the partisans of 

1 See Note D. 

2 The Church's Creed, or, The Crown's Creed; a letter, etc., by 
Edmund S. Ffoulkes, B.D., p. 67. New York, 1869. 



Protestant Principles 227 

Rome assert that men "must choose between 
infidelity and the [Roman] Catholic Church/ ' 
To minds educated to identify Christianity with 
the caricature which Rome has substituted for 
it, there appears indeed, when that- is rejected, 
no alternative but to throw themselves into the 
arms of infidelity. In the revulsion and rebound 
from that corrupt and unreasonable system, they 
are carried entirely beyond the pale of the Chris- 
tian faith. This is one of the most heinous faults 
of the Romish Church, that it shuts men up to 
this very alternative: not indeed by logic, but by 
that principle of the human mind which leads it, 
when it finds itself deceived and duped, to reject 
with indignation and disgust not only the errors 
and corruptions of the system in which it had 
rested, but also the truth which underlies them, or 
of which they are the perversions. 

In the Dore gallery, in London, there is, or was 
when I visited it a few years ago, a picture which 
well illustrates this tendency of Romanism to 
infidelity. It represents a young monk, "but 
too soon awakened to the truth that the cloister is 
not the house of pious meditation and holy life 
he had pictured in the enthusiasm which has led 
him to take the vows." He is seen sitting in the 
chapel at prayer time surrounded by his brethren 
of the cloister, with whose doting, sensual, credu- 
lous, or hypocritical faces his own noble counte- 
nance stands out in striking contrast. At last 
the illusion of his new life is dispelled. With a 



228 Romanism in the Light of History 

start he awakes to the reality of his position — so 
utterly different from his anticipations — and 
on every feature there is written in unmistakable 
characters, disappointment, disgust, dismay. 

Just such rude awakenings as that which this 
young neophyte experienced in the cloister, occur 
in numberless instances in the Church of Rome. 
It is not to be denied that there is much that is 
attractive in the Roman system as her advocates 
paint it, chiefly perhaps as offering a living, 
authoritative, infallible teacher, who shall answer 
all doubts, quiet all controversy, and give absolute 
certainty in all matters of faith, and absolute 
assurance of salvation. But when this claim is 
tested by reason, by history, by Scripture, and 
its absurdity revealed, then there comes the revul- 
sion, which Dore has so powerfully depicted on the 
face of the neophyte of the cloister, and then, as 
in his case, there follows a disappointment, a dis- 
gust, a dismay, which drives men into skepticism 
and infidelity. 

In conclusion, it only remains to say that every 
charge which Roman Catholic writers commonly 
bring against Protestantism may be retorted with 
terrible effect upon Romanism. Grave indeed 
are the imperfections of our Protestant Churches ; 
much have they yet to learn; much also, it may 
be, to unlearn ; much of failure and of unfaithful- 
ness to confess in dust and ashes before God ; but 
certainly they have nothing to fear by just com- 
parison with a Church which has altered and set 



Protestant Principles 229 

aside the Rule of Faith, perverted and corrupted 
the Way of Life, undermined the foundations of 
Morality, attempted to bind the Nations to the 
Papal throne, made unauthorized additions to the 
Christian Creed, and so caricatured Christianity, 
by its unscriptural and unreasonable claims, as to 
drive men in disgust into the arms of Infidelity. 



NOTES. 

NOTE A. — ON THE MORAL RESULTS OF ROMANISM. 

The official statistics of crime in Roman Catholic 
countries furnish a very simple and practical method 
of testing the truth of the assertion that Protestan- 
tism has been destructive of morality. 

Let us compare Protestant England with the several 
Roman Catholic countries of Europe, as to the crime 
of murder: 



In Roman Catholic Ireland there are 19 murders to every million of inhabitants. 
Belgium, " 

3i 
36 
68 



France, 
Austria, 
Bavaria, 
Sardinia, " 
Lombardy," 
Tuscany, " 



" The Papal States, 
11 Roman Catholic Sicily, 
" " " Naples, 

" Protestant England, 



45 

56 

113 

90 

174 

4 



These statistics, with dates and explanations, may 
be seen at length in Seymour's Evenings with the 
Romanists (pp. 13-30). 

Let us take another field of inquiry and com- 
parison, that, namely, which relates to vice and 
immorality. The proportion of illegitimate births is 
as follows : 

230 



Protestant Principles 



231 



In Roman Catholic Paris, 



thirty-three per cent. 



Brussels, thirty-five 
Munich, forty-eight 
Vienna, fifty-one 



Protestant London, 



FOUR 



Again : 



PROTESTANT ENGLAND. 

Bristol and Clifton, about 4 per cent. 

Bradford, " 8 " 

Birmingham, " 6 " 

Brighton, " 7 " 

Cheltenham, " 7 " 

Exeter, " 8 " 

Liverpool, " 6 " 

Manchester & Salford " 7 " 

Plymouth, " 5 " 

Portsea, " 5 " 



63 



Again : 



PROTESTANT ENGLAND. 



Liverpool, 


6 per cent 


Bristol and Clifton, 


4 " " 


Plymouth, 


5 " " 


Brighton, 


7 " " 


Manchester, 


7 " " 



29 



Again : 



IN ROMAN CATHOLIC AUSTRIA. 



Vienna, 


51 per cent. 


Prague, 


47 " 


* 


Lintz, 


46 " 


' 


Milan, 


32 " 


" 


Klagenfurt 


56 " 


' 


Gratz, 


65 " 


4 


Lembach, 


47 " 


' 


Laibach, 


38 " 


' 


Zara, 


30 " 


1 


Brunn, 


42 '* 


1 



Ibid., p. 38. 



ROMAN CATHOLIC AUSTRIA. 

Troppan, about 26 per cent. 
30 " 



Zara, 

Innspruck, 

Laibach, 

Brunn, 

Lintz, 

Prague, 

Lemberg, 

Klagenfurt, 

Gratz, 



22 

38 " " 

42 " 

46 " " 

47 " 
47 " 

56 " " 

65 " '* 

419 

Ibid., p. 39- 



ROMAN CATHOLIC ITALY . 



Turin, 

Milan, 

Venice, 

Florence, 

Naples, 



20 per cent. 
35 " " 
17 " " 
20 " " 
16 " " 

108 
Ibid., p. 41. 



IN PROTESTANT PRUSSIA. 



Berlin, 

Breslau, 

Cologne, 

Konigsberg, 

Dantzig, 

Magdeburg, 

Aix-la-Chapelle 

Stettin, 

Posen, 

Potsdam, 



18 per cent. 

26 " " 

10 " " 
28 " " 
20 " " 

11 " " 
4 " " 

13 " " 

16 M " 

12 " " 



454 158 

Ibid., p. 46. 
The result in Roman Catholic Austria is 45 per cent. 
And in Protestant Prussia, 16 " " 

Ibid., p. 47< 



232 Romanism in the Light of History 

In the light of the above statistics, which are sub- 
mitted without comment, the charge made by Roman 
Catholic polemics that Protestant principles are de- 
structive of morality, must be characterized as an 
instance either of the most unblushing effrontery or 
of the grossest ignorance. To these statistics of a 
generation ago, let me add some of recent date: 

" Meyer gives the percentage of illegitimate births 
in Austria as 426 per 1000. The Vienna Year Book 
for 1905 gives 16,867 illegitimate to 38,849 legitimate 
births. " — Decay of the Church oj Rome, p. 238. 

"The morality of Italy has signally improved 
during these decades of defection from Romanism, 
and is highest in the non-Catholic provinces. . . . 
The proportion of illegitimate births has fallen from 
7.35 per cent, in 1881 to 6.02 per cent, in 1904. The 
Roman province is one of the worst in this regard, 
having a percentage of 20.3; the northern provinces 
are the best. There is still an extraordinary laxity 
amongst the Catholic population, from the prelate 
to the peasant. ... A writer not hostile to Catholi- 
cism in The Church Quarterly (October, 1902) tells 
that he heard an Italian prelate lamenting that a 
certain distinguished Cardinal had not received the 
tiara at the last conclave. When the writer protested 
to the Italian that the Cardinal was a man of " con- 
spicuous immorality, " the prelate impatiently ex- 
claimed: "You Anglicans seem to think there is no 
virtue but chastity." — Id., p. 65. 

Recent Statistics in Germany. 

The Berlin correspondent of the Christian World, 
London, reports the result of recent exhaustive in- 



Protestant Principles 233 

vestigations of the statistical department of the 
Prussian Government dealing with the criminality 
of the population of the kingdom. 

"That result seriously calls in question the claim of 
the Roman Catholic Church to be the most free of 
crime among its adherents, and gives this position 
without hesitation to the various denominations of 
Protest ant s." 

Thus "out of every 100,000 of population, 1094 
persons belonging to the Protestant Church were 
convicted of various crimes and offenses, against 
1443 Catholics. This is the average number spread 
over the entire kingdom.' ' 

Again, "In Silesia the proportion of Protestant 
criminals is 998, of Catholics, 1841 ; Posen, 972 Protes- 
tants against 1531 Catholics. In Schles wig- Hoist ein 
we have the almost incredible figures of 1025 Protes- 
tants against 2838 Catholics." {Protestant Alliance 
Magazine, London, March, 1914, pp. 46, 47). 

Meyer gives the percentage of illegitimate births in 
Austria as 426 per 1000. The Vienna Year Book for 
1905 gives 16,867 illegitimate to 38,849 legitimate 
births. — See The Decay of the Church of Rome, by 
Joseph McCabe, p. 238. 

A similar condition exists in Hungary and Portugal. 

NOTE B. — ON THE RENUNCIATION OF REASON WHICH 
ROMANISM DEMANDS. 

The writer just quoted, who was for years a member 
of the Church of Rome, makes the following con- 
fession : 

" However, the fact that this view of infallibility is 
the recognized Catholic doctrine being at last evident 



234 Romanism in the Light of History 

to me, it was clearly my duty to see what could be 
said in its defense by competent thinkers. I need 
hardly say that from no quarter could I obtain any 
satisfactory explanation of the difficulty. It would 
be a violation of delicacy, were I to mention the names 
of those with whom I, from time to time, discussed the 
subject, especially as in almost every case it ended in 
a confession that my friends could not see their way 
out of the maze ; and I have been actually asked by at 
least one person, whose name would cause no little 
surprise, whether I could not myself supply some in- 
telligible explanation of this apparent violation of all 
the laws of reasoning. In the course of this and 
similar investigations I saw, too, more and more dis- 
tinctly, how powerfully the ordinary Catholic mind is 
under the influence of a certain terror which prevents 
it from pursuing any such inquiry as that which I 
suggested, with an unflinching determination to seek 
the truth and nothing but the truth. Almost all alike 
from the ablest to the dullest, I found to be paralyzed 
with the fear of what they considered would be a 
trifling with the supernatural gift of 'faith.' The 
belief in the reality of this gift of faith, in its logical 
efficiency, as superseding the ordinary laws of reason- 
ing in matters of religion, and the deadly peril of 
questioning its validity, confronted me on every side. 
Except in cases of unusual candor and courage, I found 
that the mere suggestion that there might possibly 
be some flaw in this whole theory about the efficacy 
and sacredness of faith aroused the keenest suspicions. 
Everybody began either to be alarmed for me, as if 
I were voluntarily casting myself down to perdition; 
or for himself, feeling that he was trembling on the 
verge of a discovery which might shatter his whole 



Protestant Principles 235 

belief in the Roman system of doctrine. I felt myself 
involved in the meshes of a system of intellectual slavery. 
All around were the loudest assertions that Catholicism 
will bear the strictest investigation, and that its doctrines 
are in perfect harmony with the conclusions of enlight- 
ened reason, because they come from God Himself. But 
in practice, I perceived that all inquiry into the logical 
grounds of belief was in reality forbidden, and that you 
might do everything in the way of beautifying, or 
even repairing and enlarging the edifice of the Church, 
but that any examination into the stability of its 
foundations was held to be equivalent to a conviction 
that those foundations were, or might be, rotten/ ' — 
Reasons for Returning to the Church of England, pp. 
64-66. 

NOTE C. — ON TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 

"Many of the distinctive doctrines of the Church of 
Rome are subversive of reason and an insult to com- 
mon sense" (p. 225). 

The dogma of transubstantiation is an instance in 
point. That it is contrary to reason and common 
sense, and that it tends directly to skepticism, is 
well shown by the writer already twice quoted. After 
spending years within the bosom of the Roman Church, 
vainly seeking rest, he wrote as follows: 

"A revelation from God may teach many things 
which could not otherwise be known, and many things 
which until thoroughly understood seem to present 
very various moral or critical difficulties. But it 
cannot call on man to believe any dogmas which are 
contrary to one another, or which cut up the whole 
structure of human belief by the roots. If any pro- 



236 Romanism in the Light of History 

fessing revelation does this, it follows that it is no 
revelation at all. Supposing, therefore, that the 
theory of Roman infallibility leads to the assertion 
of any doctrine which violates the laws upon which 
the recognition of Christianity itself depends, it neces- 
sarily follows that so far from Rome being infallible, 
she is a standing proof of her own fallibility. 

"This proof, I saw, was to be found in the doctrine 
of transubstantiation. I perceived, without then 
knowing that the same difficulty had long ago been 
urged by Tillotson, that in adopting a theory as to the 
presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Eu- 
charist, which invalidates the testimony of the senses, 
we really destroy all human knowledge whatsoever. 
The doctrine of transubstantiation, I need hardly 
remind the general reader, alleges that the consecrated 
wafer really is the body of Christ, although all the 
appearances of the original bread remain unchanged. 
These outward appearances are termed the ' accidents,' 
while the 'substance/ it is alleged, is transubstan- 
tiated into that which is, in its essence, the body and 
blood of Christ. There is nothing, therefore, in this, 
it is argued by Roman theologians, that contradicts 
the senses, because the teaching of the Roman Church 
is to the effect that only the substance of the bread 
undergoes any alterations. 

"They here, however, overlook the circumstance 
that in asserting that the evidence of the senses as to 
externally existing objects is not to be depended upon, 
they introduce a universal unbelief, because it is only 
through the evidence of the senses that we know 
anything at all of what passes without the limits of 
our own minds. // the senses are not to be depended on t 
how can we know that such a person as Jesus Christ ever 



Protestant Principles 237 

existed? How can we be certain that the book before 
our eyes is not substantially different from what it 
appears to be? If the apostles were bound to believe 
that the bread before their eyes, at the last supper, was 
not bread, but the body of the Lord, who was sitting 
by their side, how could they be justified in believing 
their ears, which told them that He was speaking to 
them? What was the logical value of the feeling of 
the body of Christ by Thomas, as a proof that Christ 
was alive before him, if the sense of touch is not to 
be relied on? If the consecrated bread is not bread, 
but flesh and blood, why might not the body which 
Thomas handled be a vision or a marble statue? 
We cannot possibly employ the evidence of the senses 
for the purpose of invalidating the evidence of the 
senses. It is impossible that Christ can have intended 
His followers to believe that what appears to the 
touch and the taste to be bread was anything but 
bread ; for any such command would have been equiva- 
lent to an assertion that the whole edifice of man's 
intellectual life is a baseless dream. Rome, therefore, 
which does teach this suicidal doctrine, cannot by any 
possibility be an infallible guide. 

" Farther still, the dogma of transubstantiation 
implies the truth of a philosophy which, for myself, 
I believe to be radically unsound and inconsistent with 
the elementary facts of human nature. It is an un- 
deniable truth that the whole of our knowledge of the 
visible world around us is derived from the impression 
of our senses. We know, in philosophical language, 
phenomena, and nothing else. We are conscious of 
certain sensations produced upon us through our eyes, 
ears, and general bodily organs. We feel hardness, 
softness, sweetness, loudness, color, form, and the 



238 Romanism in the Light of History 

like ; and this is absolutely our only means of acquiring 
any perception of the physiological nature of the uni- 
verse in which we are placed. We know, in a word 
what we are ourselves; together with all the variety 
of the abstract truths to which the mind attains by its 
own inward processes. 

" These phenomena, then, are what, in the language 
of Catholic theologians, are called ' accidents/ and 
which they, following the speculations of the school- 
men, imagine to be attached to some actually existing 
reality, which they term the 'substance.' This 
substance, they fancy, can exist, in the nature of 
things, wholly apart from these accidental qualities of 
hardness, or softness, or sweetness, or loudness, or 
what not. Nevertheless, in thus asserting, not only 
the abstract possibility of the existence of such an 
entity, but the reality of that existence, as they do in 
the dogma of transubstantiation, they are assuming 
certain capacities in the human mind which are in the 
highest degree unreal and extravagant. We possess 
absolutely no knowledge whatever of any material 
object, beyond the phenomena which it presents to 
our senses. We do not even know what matter is, 
or how far it has any objective existence at all, apart 
from the sensations of which we are in ourselves 
conscious. When, then, the Roman Church calls 
upon us to believe that in bread there does actually 
exist a certain something which is separable from the 
phenomena that bread presents to the senses, it is 
making a demand which reason wholly repudiates. 
It might as justifiably ask me to profess a knowledge 
of the exact number of the stars, or to state what is 
passing at this moment in the minds of the inhabitants 
of the antipodes. I cannot believe that bread is 



Protestant Principles 239 

transformed into flesh and blood, without previously- 
believing that I possess a certain philosophical faculty, 
which I am absolutely confident that I do not possess. 
If I am to assert that I believe in the existence of 
1 substance ' apart from its ' accidents/ I must deny my 
whole intellectual nature, and profess myself nothing 
less than imbecile. 

" Doubtless, in former days, when metaphysics 
and ontology were little better than a cloud of words, 
and men played with counters, and imagined them to 
be golden coins, this notion of transubstantiation was 
not the transparent fiction which we now see it to be, 
since we have learned to build the science of mind on 
the observed facts of the mind. Transubstantiation, 
like various other interpretations of the original 
teachings of Jesus Christ, was practically created by 
the various philosophies which from time to time have 
been substituted for the philosophy of scientific fact. 
But when Rome thus pledges herself to the mainten- 
ance of the theories of extinct metaphysics, she might 
as rationally pledge herself to the belief in a race of 
men who carry their heads beneath their shoulders. 
And, in so doing, she forces upon the unprejudiced 
observer the conclusion that her claim to infallibility 
is a figment of the imagination. " — Reasons for Return- 
ing to the Church of England, pp. 95-103. 

NOTE D. p. 225. — ON THE TENDENCY OF ROMANISM TO 
INFIDELITY. 

This is well pointed out by Prof. Geo. P. Fisher, 
D.D., of Yale, in the following passage: 

" Roman Catholic polemics maintain that Protes- 
tantism is responsible for the skepticism and unbelief 



240 Romanism in the Light of History 

that prevail so extensively among Christian nations. 
They assert that there has arisen in the wake of Pro- 
testantism a spirit of irreligion which threatens to 
subvert the social fabric. The causes of this evil, 
however, do not lie at the door of Protestantism. The 
free inquiry that had developed in Europe in connec- 
tion with the revival of learning could not be smoth- 
ered by mere authority. The earnest religious feeling 
which the Reformation at the outset brought with it 
counteracted the tendencies to unbelief for a time, at 
least; and it was only when Protestantism departed 
from its own principles, and acted upon the maxims 
of its adversary, at the same time losing the warmth 
of religious life so conspicuous at the beginning, that 
infidelity had a free course. The ideas which Plu- 
tarch long ago embodied in his Treatise on Supersti- 
tion and Unbelief are well founded. They are two 
extremes, each of which begets the other. Not only 
may the artificial faith which leads to superstitious 
practices, and drives its devotees to fanaticism, at 
length spend its force and move the same devotees to 
cast off the restraints of religion, but the spectacle of 
superstition, also, repels more sober and courageous 
minds from all faith and worship. Such has been the 
notorious effect of the superstitious ceremonies and 
austerities of the Roman Catholic system, both in the 
age of the Renaissance and in our own day. Religion 
comes to be identified, in the opinions of men, with 
tenets and observances which are repugnant to reason 
and common sense; and hence truth and error are 
thrown overboard at once. 

"Disgusted with the follies which pass under the 
name of religion and attract the reverence of the 
ignorant, men make shipwreck of faith altogether. 



Protestant Principles 241 

The same baleful influence ensues upon the attempt to 
stretch the principle of authority beyond the due limit. 
It is like the effect of excessive restraint in the family. 
A revolt is the consequence wherever there is a failure 
to repress mental activity and to enslave the wilL 
The subjugation of the intelligence which the Roman 
Catholic system carries with it as an essential ingredi- 
ent compels a mutiny which is very likely not to stop 
with the rejection of usurped authority. . , . Look- 
ing at the matter historically, we find that, in the age 
prior to the Reformation, unbelief was most rife in 
Italy, the ancient center of the Roman Catholic 
hierarchy. In recent times, skepticism is nowhere 
more prevalent than among the higher, cultivated 
classes in Roman Catholic countries, where the doc- 
trines of that religion have been perpetually taught, 
and where its ritual has been celebrated with most 
pomp." — Proceedings of the Evangelical Alliance, pp. 
465-6. New York, 1873. 



Religious Liberty and the 
Maryland Toleration Act 



243 



Religious Liberty and the Maryland 
Toleration Act 

IN the month of September 1908, his Eminence, 
Cardinal Gibbons, in the Roman Catholic Ca- 
thedral of Westminster, London, delivered a sermon 
in which he put forth the claim, so often pre- 
viously made, that civil and religious liberty was 
first established on American soil in the Roman 
Catholic Colony of Maryland. I give here an 
Open Letter, which I addressed to the Cardinal 
at the time: 

To His Eminence Cardinal Gibbons: 

"In your recent sermon in the Roman Catholic 
Cathedral of Westminster, London, you are re- 
ported as saying, concerning the colony sent by 
Lord Baltimore to Maryland in 1634 : 

'This colony of British Catholics was the first to 
establish on American soil the blessings of civil and 
religious liberty. While the Puritans of New England 
persecuted other Christians, and while the Episco- 
palians of Virginia persecuted Puritans, Catholic 
Maryland gave freedom and hospitality to Puritans 
and Episcopalians alike. ' 

245 



246 Romanism in the Light of History 

In view of this statement, uttered on such a 
conspicuous occasion, will your Eminence allow 
one of your fellow countrymen, a Marylander 
and the son of a Marylander, solicitous for the 
truth of Maryland history, to ask you publicly 
one or two questions, the answers to which may, 
perhaps, contribute to set in its true perspective 
that chapter of Maryland history to which you 
make allusion. 

1 . Is it not a fact that Lord Baltimore's colony, 
which you call a colony of " British Catholics, " 
was composed in very large part of Protestants? 
Were not Protestants, indeed a considerable 
majority among the colonists that sailed from 
Cowes in the Ark and the Dove? 

Your Eminence will recall that the colony 
consisted, as Lord Baltimore wrote to Wentworth, 
of about " twenty gentlemen of very good fashion 
and three hundred laboring men " — Father Whyte, 
who was one of the colonists, puts the number at 
two hundred. It may also be remembered that 
two of the councilors of the colony were adherents 
of the Church of England and that "great num- 
bers of the colonists, apparently the great majority, 
took the oath of British allegiance before sailing" 
— that oath which Pope Urban VIII. had charged 
the Irish "rather to lose their lives than to take. " 
It may further be mentioned, as showing that the 
colony was probably composed more largely of 
Protestants than of Roman Catholics, that of the 
twelve persons who died on the voyage to America, 



Religious Liberty 247 

ten were Protestants. How then can your Emi- 
nence justly call Lord Baltimore's colony a colony 
of " British Catholics? " I beg to refer to the work 
of Dr. Ethan Allen, Who Were the Early Settlers of 
Maryland:? published in 1865, and to that of Rev. 
B. F. Brown, published in 1870 and entitled, Early 
Religious History of Maryland; Maryland not a 
Roman Catholic Colony, and to Streeter's Maryland 
Two Hundred Years Ago, and to John Fiske's Old 
Virginia and Her Neighbors, i., 272-3. 

2. Considering this fact, was not a policy of 
religious toleration a political necessity for the 
colony? Could Lord Baltimore deny toleration 
to his own colonists? Indeed, when we study the 
Maryland Edict of Toleration in the dry light of 
history, must we not acknowledge the justice of 
the comment of Mr. Gladstone, that it was 
primarily a measure of prudence and self-defense? 
Clearly it was a measure well ^calculated to attract 
the settlers so necessary to the existence of the 
colony, but was it not, more than that, necessary 
to the protection of the colony — to its very exist- 
ence indeed, under the circumstances which 
obtained in 1649? I venture to remind your 
Eminence that Charles I. had been executed three 
months before and that Cromwell was now supreme 
on both sides of the sea; and I ask your Eminence 
to tell us what would have been the probable fate 
of the " Catholic Colony" of Maryland at the 
hands of the terrible Cromwell had the Protestant 
religion not been tolerated there. 



248 Romanism in the Light of History 

3. There is a very interesting fact in connection 
with the Edict of Toleration which your Eminence 
does not seem to have adverted to in your sermon. 
I mean the fact that this famous edict was passed 
by a Legislature, two- thirds of whose members 
appear to have been Protestants. It contained 
(as probably your Eminence has forgotten) sixteen 
Protestants and eight Roman Catholics. The 
Governor himself at the time was a Protestant. 

To be exact, the Protestants were as follows: 
The Governor, 1; the Councilors, 6; the Bur- 
gesses, 9 — 16. 

And the Roman Catholics : 
The Councilors, 3; the Burgesses, 5 — 8. 
This is the conclusion of a careful writer after a 
thorough search of the original records in the 
Statehouse at Annapolis. x 

Under these circumstances may I ask your 
Eminence to say whether Protestants may not lay 
claim to at least an equal part of the honor and 
credit of this great Edict of Toleration? 

4. Another interesting fact I find no mention 
of in the report of your Eminence's sermon — 
(perhaps time did not permit you to state it) — I 
mean the fact that the Charter granted Lord 
Baltimore by the English King, the titular head 
of the English Church, required that the religion 
of the English Church should be recognized. And 
I would like your Eminence to tell the English and 

1 Neill, Maryland, not a Roman Catholic Colony, p. 7. Min- 
neapolis, 1875. 



Religious Liberty 249 

American people what would, in your opinion, have 
been the probable consequence of a refusal by 
Lord Baltimore during the life of Charles I., to 
tolerate the Protestant religion, as the religion 
of the Church of England was then called? Would 
not the Charter granted by the King for the es- 
tablishment of the colony have been instantly 
forfeited? 

5. Again I would beg leave to ask of your 
Eminence this question: Suppose the colony of 
Maryland had been under the protection of a 
Roman Catholic, and not a Protestant sovereign — 
say under such a sovereign as Queen Mary of 
England, or Philip of Spain, or Louis XIV. of 
France — is it your Eminence's opinion that a 
policy of toleration would have been adopted? 
Does your Eminence know of any instance in 
modern times down to the end of the eighteenth 
century in which a Roman Catholic Sovereign or a 
Roman Catholic Government of any kind has en- 
couraged the policy of religious toleration? 

Your Eminence said in your sermon that while 
the Puritans of New England persecuted other 
Christians, and while the Episcopalians of Virginia 
persecuted the Puritans, Catholic Maryland gave 
freedom and hospitality to Puritans and Episco- 
palians alike. Will you be good enough to tell us 
(while Catholic Maryland was giving freedom to 
Puritans and Episcopalians alike) what was 
" Catholic Spain' ' doing, and " Catholic Prance, " 
and ' ' Catholic Italy ' ' ? Were they giving freedom 



250 Romanism in the Light of History 

and hospitality to Protestants and the Protestant 
religion, in the middle of the seventeenth cfentury? 

Louis XIV. was then on the throne of France. 
Was his government practicing religious toleration 
at this period? 

Philip IV. reigned over Spain; did he tolerate 
Protestant worship in the Spanish peninsula? 

Innocent X. sat on the Papal throne ; did he give 
freedom and hospitality to Protestants within the 
Papal Dominion? We know what his predecessor 
Urban VIII. did to Galileo; was his administration 
any more tolerant? 

And if Maryland (a "Catholic" colony, in your 
Eminence's estimation) presents the one exception 
known to history of the practice of toleration by a 
Catholic government, is it not clearly traceable to 
the mixed character of the colony (comprising 
both Catholics and Protestants) , and to the neces- 
sity of the situation — colonists of whatever 
religion being necessary to the growth of the 
colony? 

6. Yet again, may I call your Eminence's 
attention to the fact that the Charter granted Lord 
Baltimore by the Protestant King was of such a 
character that both the worship of the Church of 
England and that of the Church of Rome must 
have been tolerated under it? This is strongly set 
forth in The Life and Character of Lord Baltimore, 
published in 1845 by one of Maryland's most 
honored and brilliant sons, Hon. John P. Kennedy, 
who maintains that the policy of toleration was in 



Religious Liberty 251 

the Charter which antedated the Edict of 1649 by 
fifteen years. And is not this contention justified 
not only by the language of the Charter, but by 
the practice of the Colonial Government? I refer 
to the existence of a Church of England chapel at 
St. Mary's from the foundation of the colony, 
and the several recorded instances in which punish- 
ment was meted out to Roman Catholics who at- 
tempted to interfere with the worship of the 
chapel. x 

7. As to the genesis of this famous Edict of 
1649, is there not good reason to trace it to the Act 
of the House of Commons, October 2J> 1647, which, 
in language identical with the Maryland act, de- 
creed that the inhabitants of all American planta- 
tions should "have and enjoy the liberty of 
conscience in the matters of God's worship?" 
This act was called by Rev. Thos. Harrison, the 
Puritan pastor at Annapolis, "that golden apple, 
the ordinance of toleration," and this long before 
the Edict of 1649. 

It is clearly established that Puritan and Protes- 
tant influence had great part in bringing about 
that Edict — much greater, apparently, than the 
Roman Catholic influence. 

Mr. Gladstone's conclusion would seem to be 
irresistible. "Upon the whole the picture of 
Maryland legislation is a gratifying one; but the 

1 The tradition is that there was but one chapel, and that this 
was used alternately by Roman Catholics and "Protestant 
Catholics," as the Church of England people called themselves. 



252 Romanism in the Light of History 

historic view which assigns the credit of it to the 
Roman Church has little foundation in fact. " 

There is a perplexity which many people feel, 
which I do not ask your Eminence to resolve, but 
which I cannot refrain from mentioning in con- 
clusion, and that is, how it is consistent with the 
loyalty of a faithful son of the Roman Church to 
hold up to the admiration of the world this Mary- 
land Edict of Religious Toleration, in face of re- 
peated declarations of successive Popes on the 
subject. One of the errors which was condemned 
in the Syllabus of Pope Pius IX. (which must be 
regarded by the faithful as infallible and irreform- 
able) was this : 

"Every man is free to embrace and profess the 
religion he shall believe to be true, guided by the 
light of reason.' ' 

Another was this : " In the present day it is no 
longer expedient that the Catholic religion shall be 
held as the only religion of the State, to the exclu- 
sion of all other modes of worship.' ' 

Carrying out these same principles, the Pope in 
1858, as your Eminence may remember, " con- 
demned the then recent Spanish law which 
tolerated other forms of worship. M 

And Leo XIII. in his Encyclical "Libertas 
praestantissimum, " June 20, 1888, reaffirms the 
utterances of Pius IX., condemning severely the 
11 modern liberties' ' of worship, of speech, and of 
conscience. 

How then can a loyal Roman Catholic hold 



Religious Liberty 253 

up the Maryland Edict of Toleration to honor 
and emulation without incurring the charge of 
"Modernism"? 



A Rejoinder 



To this letter reply was made on behalf of the 
Cardinal, by one of his subordinates, and to this 
I made the following rejoinder: 

"Before making reply to the critics of my Open 
Letter to Cardinal Gibbons, I want to remind the 
public that I am not the aggressor in this contro- 
versy, I have the greatest respect for his Emi- 
nence the Cardinal — for his age, for his office, for 
his character, and for his many qualities as a man 
and a citizen, which command the regard of the 
American people. But I venerate the truth still 
more, and when the Cardinal disparages the great 
Church, of which I am an humble representative 
(as he did three years ago in commenting on her 
marriage and divorce legislation, and as he did in 
London, in the eye of the whole world, in August 
last), I shall always, I hope, have the courage to 
meet his challenge and contend for the truth of 
history as I see it, courteously, but firmly. 

Now I take issue with the Cardinal on three 
points : 

1. Lord Baltimore's colony was not a colony 
of British Catholics, as the Cardinal asserted in his 
sermon. 



254 Romanism in the Light of History 

2. The Toleration Act of 1649 was not passed 
by " a General Assembly of Catholics, " as the 
Cardinal asserted, thirty years ago, and as he 
implied last August. 

3. His implication that the Catholics of Mary- 
land were apostles of religious toleration, while the 
Episcopalians of Virginia were pursuing a policy 
of intolerance and persecution, is not in accordance 
with the facts. 

1. I take these in their order: First, if Lord 
Baltimore's colony was a colony of British 
Catholics, why did he, when the expedition was 
about to sail from England in 1633, give orders 
that all acts of the Roman Catholic religion per- 
formed on the voyage, should be performed as 
privately as possible? Again, if it was a colony 
of British Catholics, why did 128 persons on board 
take the British oath of allegiance, which no 
Roman Catholic could take, before the ships sailed? 
Father Russell says and the Jesuit Father White 
says the same: "The colonists numbered two 
hundred, " so that it would seem the majority of 
all the company took the Protestant oath. 

I give now some historical authorities on the 
question: John Fiske (certainly not a Protestant 
historian), says: "It is generally believed that the 
majority of the company were Protestants. The 
leaders were nearly all Catholics. " {Old Virginia 
and Her Neighbors, i., page 273.) Similar testi- 
monies could be quoted from Bozman, Bancroft, 
Streeter, Ethan Allen, Neill, Hammond, B. F. 



Religious Liberty 255 

Brown, and other historians. But as historians 
differ, and as my critics appear to adopt the prin- 
ciple that all writers who support my contention 
are unreliable (a short and easy method of con- 
troversy), I shall give an authority that neither 
Father Russell nor any other Roman Catholic can 
question, I refer to the testimony of the Jesuit 
Father White, one of Lord Baltimore's colonists. 
Writing officially to the Provincial of his Order in 
England, and referring to the beginning of the 
colony, he says: "For in leading the colony to 
Maryland, by far the greater part were heretics.' ' 
(See The Records of the English Province of the 
Society of Jesus, seventh series, page 364.) 

It is certain, then, that of the colony that sailed 
for America on the Ark and the Dove, in 1633, "by 
far the greater part were heretics, " that is Protes- 
tants. I go on to affirm, as an historical fact, 
beyond possibility of contradiction, that if refer- 
ence be had to the religion of the mass of the people, 
Maryland never was a Roman Catholic colony. 
Every one of the five Eastern Shore colonies of 
Maryland was settled by Protestants, and of the 
five colonies on the Western Shore of the bay, only 
two, St. Mary's and Charles, had any Roman 
Catholic population at all. The first settlement in 
Maryland (five years before Baltimore's colony) 
was on Kent Island, and was a Church of England 
colony. The second, that of St. Mary's, was part 
Roman Catholic and part Protestant ; and so many 
were the Protestants that in 1641 that same Jesuit 



256 Romanism in the Light of History- 
Father White wrote that " three parts of the people 
at least are heretics. " Id., p. 362. The third 
settlement was that of Ann Arundel, and it, too, 
was Protestant. A broader study of the history of 
Maryland may be recommended to my critics. 

2. I come now to the Act of Toleration of 1649, 
and I affirm that it was not passed by "a General 
Assembly of Catholics, " but by a mixed Assembly, 
the majority of whom appear to have been Protes- 
tants. In my letter to the Cardinal I referred to 
Neill's careful estimate, showing that two-thirds 
of the Assembly of 1649 were Protestants. His 
authority is repudiated by my critics. What 
then are the probabilities. Father Andrew White, 
writing from the colony in 1641, says "that Mr. 
Liugar, the Secretary of Lord Baltimore, in whose 
charge the colony was left during his temporary 
absence, summoned the Assembly in Maryland, 
composed, with few exceptions, of heretics. " 
{Records of the English Province of the Society of 
Jesus, seventh series, p. 365.) So, then, in 1641 
the Maryland Assembly was composed, with few 
exceptions, of Protestants. 

Observe again, the Maryland Assembly of 1648 
addressed a letter to Lord Baltimore, in which they 
said that the Assembly of 1647 "was composed, 
two or three only excepted, of Governor Calvert's 
enemies. " 

Observe next, that on the sixth of August, 1648, 
Col. William Stone, a Protestant, was made 
Governor, and the Council was reorganized, so 



Religious Liberty 257 

that one-half of the members were Protestants. 
Thus the Protestants were in a majority in the 
Government in the year 1648, which was the year 
before the Act of Toleration. Mr. Clayton Cole- 
man Hall, LL.B., in his lectures before the Johns 
Hopkins University on The Lords Baltimore, in the 
year 1902, says, page 67: "The lower House of 
Assembly soon became the popular representative 
body, and the large majority of the freemen were 
at an early date Protestants. " 

Next observe that in 1650, the year after the 
Edict of Toleration, the records show that the 
Assembly was overwhelmingly Protestant, there 
being only four Roman Catholics, and these all 
objected to the principles of the Act of Toleration, 
and one of the three, Thomas Mathews, said he 
could not take the oath of toleration, as he wished 
to be guided in matters of conscience by spiritual 
counsel. {Annapolis Manuscript.) These facts 
as to the composition of the Assembly in 1641, 
1648, and 1650 certainly go far to sustain Neill's 
statement that the majority of the Assembly in 
1649 were Protestants. 

I hold, therefore, that the Cardinal's statement 
that the act of 1649 was passed by a General 
Assembly of Catholics, is unquestionably an his- 
torical error. It is true that Maryland "gave 
freedom and hospitality to Puritans and Episco- 
palians alike, " but it was not Catholic Maryland 
that did this, but "Maryland, Catholic and Protes- 
tant. " I may here quote Bancroft who says: 



258 Romanism in the Light of History 

"The thirteen Colonies were all Protestant. 
Even in Maryland the Roman Catholics formed 
scarcely an eighth, perhaps not more than a 
twelfth part of the population. " 

3. The Cardinal's statement in the West- 
minster Cathedral to which I took exception 
implied that the Catholics of Maryland were 
apostles of religious toleration, while the Episco- 
palians of Virginia were pursuing a policy of 
intolerance and persecution. 

Now let it be observed that I make no claim that 
Episcopalians, or other Protestants, had risen in 
the seventeenth century to the true conception of 
religious toleration. It was not understood or 
practiced by any Christians at that period save by 
Roger Williams and his followers in Rhode Island. 

This much-vaunted Maryland Act of Toleration 
itself ordained first, that any person who denied 
the divinity of Christ or the doctrine of the Holy 
Trinity should be punished with death, and all his 
goods confiscated; second, that whoever should 
utter reproachful words concerning the Virgin 
Mary or the Holy Apostles should be fined, or 
publicly whipped and imprisoned. 

Nevertheless, it was a great and honorable 
advance in the direction of religious toleration, to 
enact that all persons " professing to believe in 
Jesus Christ " should enjoy the free exercise of their 
religion. 

But to whom does the credit of this measure 
belong? Does it belong to the Roman Catholic 



Religious Liberty 259 

Church? I affirm that no one who is acquainted 
with the history of that Church and with its 
authoritative declarations of dogma can maintain 
such a proposition. In confirmation of this it is 
enough to quote the language of the oath taken by 
every Bishop of that Church in the United States 
down to the year 1846. " Heretics, schismatics, 
and rebels to our said lord (the Pope), or his 
successors I will to my utmost persecute and oppose 
(persequar et impugnabo. ") Now, let no one say 
that I charge our fellow citizens of the Roman 
Catholic Church with sympathy with this intoler- 
ance. Not by any means. But the fact shows 
that the Church as such, in 1649, could not willing- 
ly encourage Religious Toleration. But if not to 
the Church of Rome, to whom does belong the 
honor of this Act of Toleration? I answer very 
largely to Lord Baltimore, the Proprietary; but 
it must be added, rather as a measure of wise and 
statesmanlike policy, than from any other motive. 
He obtained his Charter from Charles I., a Protes- 
tant King. That Charter bound him to protect 
God's Holy Church and "the true Christian re- 
ligion/ ' and to observe "the ecclesiastical laws of 
our Kingdom of England. " Therefore, Lord 
Baltimore was bound and compelled to tolerate the 
worship of the Church of England in his new colony, 
and deserves no special credit for yielding to the 
necessity of so doing. 

The Jesuit Father White, already quoted, says: 
"In a country like this newly planted, and de- 



260 Romanism in the Light of History- 
pending wholly upon England, there is not, nor 
can be, any ecclesiastical discipline established by 
law — nor the Catholic Religion publicly allowed. " 
{Records, seventh series, p. 362.) 

Moreover, Lord Baltimore, though a sincere 
Roman Catholic, was first and above all resolved 
to build up his colony, — whether by Romanists or 
Protestants appears to have been immaterial to 
him. Accordingly, in 1643, he wrote to Governor 
Winthrop, of Massachusetts (who records the 
fact in his diary), offering "land in Maryland with 
free liberty of religion, to any of the Massachu- 
setts colonists who would transport themselves 
there. " 

Then in 1648, after King Charles had been de- 
feated and taken prisoner: 

"Recognizing the necessity under this condition of 
affairs, of so ordering the government of the Province, 
if he were to retain possession of it, to refute the 
charge made by his enemies . . . that it was a hot 
bed of popery, he appointed William Stone, a Protes- 
tant and friend of the Parliament, as Governor . . . 
and reorganized the Council so that one-half of the 
members were Protestants — and this on condition 
that Stone should bring in from Virginia five hundred 
colonists, who would, of course, be all or nearly all 
Protestants." 

All this plainly shows that it was as a wise states- 
man and as Lord Proprietor of Maryland, rather 
than as a Roman Catholic, that Lord Baltimore 



Religious Liberty 261 

adopted the policy of tolerating the religion of 
Protestants side by side with that of Roman 
Catholics. Certainly he was a man of great tact 
and shrewdness, for after being for many years a 
warm friend of Charles I., he was able on his fall, 
to secure the favor of Cromwell without delay. 

Yet it ought to be said that the Maryland 
Assembly, which from the first had refused to be 
dictated to by Lord Baltimore, deserved its share 
of the meed of praise for the Act of Toleration 
of 1649, — and that Assembly was predominantly 
Protestant. 

Still, in their case, too, it must be admitted that 
it was rather state policy than the real adoption 
of the principles of toleration that governed their 
action. 

In conclusion, two things ought to be borne in 
mind in reading the history of this period. The 
first is, that the toleration established in Maryland 
was primarily, and more and more for the benefit 
of its Roman Catholic population, who were in a 
minority, and therefore the more needed protec- 
tion. The oath prescribed to Governor Stone is 
an instance of this, for it bound him not to molest 
any on account of his religion — "in particular no 
Roman Catholic. " 

The other thing to be remembered, especially in 
considering the repeal of the Act of Toleration by 
the Protestant Government of Maryland, is that 
the Protestants of the seventeenth century were in 
mortal dread of the political power of the Church of 



262 Romanism in the Light of History 

Rome. They remembered that Pope Paul the 
Fourth forbade Elizabeth to ascend the English 
throne unless she would agree to declare England 
a gift of the Apostolic See, and that Pope Pius 
Fifth, eleven years later, issued a Bull against 
Queen Elizabeth, absolving her subjects from their 
allegiance. They remembered that ' ' the invincible 
Armada' ' had been launched against England with 
the blessing of the Pope. And they remembered 
the Gunpowder Plot, which was designed to blow 
up the King, the Lords, and the Commons, at 
once. These events begot in the hearts of English- 
men an intense hatred of the Church of Rome, as 
their most powerful and dangerous foe. 

Doubtless the friendly relations between Protes- 
tants and Roman Catholics, which exist to-day, in 
England and the United States, are largely due to 
the fact that the temporal power of the Pope is a 
thing of the past. 



A Further Reply to Father Russell. 

It is quite useless for Father Russell to try to 
evade the issues in the question between Cardinal 
Gibbons and myself, as he does in his letter pub- 
lished in The Post of October 19th, 1908. These 
issues, three in number, are succinctly and clearly 
stated in my letter, which appeared on the same 
day. They are these: 

First, Lord Baltimore's colony was not a colony 



Religious Liberty 263 

of " British Catholics. " Second, the Toleration 
Act of 1649 was not passed by an Assembly of 
R. Catholics, but by a mixed Assembly. Third, 
the Roman Catholics of the seventeenth century, 
neither in Maryland nor elsewhere, had grasped 
the true conception of religious toleration, any 
more than had the Protestants of the same period. 

I shall not turn aside from these to follow this 
doughty champion, who has rushed with so much 
sound and fury into the lists, forgetting in his zeal 
the amenities that ought to be observed between 
Christian controversialists. Let him meet those 
issues, if he can ! Let him refute my arguments, if 
he can! Let him deny the statements of the 
Jesuit Father White, if he dare ! 

It is the favorite device of some controversialists, 
when they are unable to meet the arguments of 
their antagonists, to seek to divert attention from 
their defeat by raising questions foreign to the 
original question at issue. Father Russell chal- 
lenges me to deny what I have already asserted 
in my original letter to the Cardinal, and in my 
article of October 19th, namely, that Lord Balti- 
more adopted a policy of toleration from the 
beginning. 

Again, he challenges me to deny that the Protes- 
tants of Maryland, Virginia, and New England 
failed to practice true religious toleration — a thing 
I had plainly and strongly asserted in the same 
article! Verily a cheap and easy challenge this! 

And then he fills a whole column with instances 



264 Romanism in the Light of History 

of Protestant intolerance. If I were minded to 
follow him, I could fill every page of The Post 
with examples of persecution and cruelty by Ro- 
man Catholics in the same period. But I have 
no wish to reopen such painful pages of history. 
Both Roman Catholics and Protestants have 
learned something since the seventeenth century. 

Let me say that I make my appeal, not to a jury 
of newspaper editors, however distinguished, but 
to the jury of public opinion — to the impartial 
judgment of all fair-minded men in our community 
— and I am entirely content to await and abide 
their verdict in this matter. 

Father Russell threatens to retire from the con- 
troversy if his preposterous challenge is not ac- 
cepted. Probably such a course would be wise. 
It might have been better for him and for his cause 
if he had not entered the lists at all. Indeed, it 
may be surmised that his Eminence, the Cardinal, 
when he takes note of Father Russell's communica- 
tion, so strong in invective, so weak in logic, so 
evasive of the real issues involved, will say in his 
secret soul, "non tali auxilio, nee defensoribus 
istis!" 

Before closing, I call attention to the following 
utterance of Father Russell, in which he seeks to 
convict me of dishonesty. He says : 

"I have already shown in The Post that Neill 
himself grudgingly admits that he was in error 
{Terra Maria, p. 85). Now, I ask any fair- 
minded reader if Dr. McKim's course in thus 



Religious Liberty 265 

repeating a self-discredited author's assertion is 
honest ?" 

Will it be believed that Neill in the passage 
referred to does no such thing? Not a trace is to 
be found of this admission! His Terra Maria, 
quoted by our soidisant " historian, " was published 
in 1867 (a copy lies before me as I write), but his 
Maryland Not a Roman Catholic Colony, from 
which I quoted, was not published till 1875, the let- 
ters which composed it having been written in 1874. 

How could Neill, writing in 1867, admit he was 
in error in a pamphlet which he did not write till 
seven years later? That is an achievement that 
even Father Russell, clever as he may be, could not 
perform. I do not charge him with dishonesty in 
bringing such a charge against me, but I do convict 
him of reckless and inexcusable misstatement. 

I have only to add that the first stone in this 
controversy was thrown not by me, but by his 
Eminence the Cardinal, from the pulpit of West- 
minster Cathedral, in London, on a famous 
occasion in August last, and it was aimed at the 
Episcopalians of Virginia and the Puritans of New 
England. 



Who Were the Founders of Religious Liberty in 
Maryland? 

Father Russell, after the publication of my last 
letter, issued a pamphlet with the above title, and 



266 Romanism in the Light of History 

modestly called it "The Conclusion of the Con- 
troversy. " That a priest of the Roman Church 
should claim for his Church the honor of founding 
Religious Liberty in America is almost comical, 
when one remembers that the Roman Church has 
been in all ages the outspoken enemy of Religious 
Liberty, and that the most enlightened of her 
modern Popes, Leo XIII. , as well as Pius X., the 
present occupant of the Papal chair, was as 
strenuous an opponent of freedom of worship and 
of conscience as Hildebrand himself. 

Even Cardinal Gibbons who is lauded as the 
incarnation of toleration and liberality, and as an 
enthusiastic admirer of our American liberty, 
dare go no farther than to say that " Religious 
liberty may be tolerated by a ruler when it would 
do more harm to the State to repress it." 

If Father Russell had succeeded in establishing 
his thesis that Religious Liberty in Maryland was 
founded by the Roman Catholic Church, or her 
representatives, he would have shown that those 
who achieved this result had subjected them- 
selves to the anathema of the infallible heads 
of the Church for many generations. But the 
good Monsignor has quite failed to establish his 
thesis. 

Consider that the colony was composed chiefly 
of Church of England people and non-conformists 
with a few Papists. In addition to the proof of 
this already furnished, note that the First Legis- 
lative Assembly of the Colony, 1638, was composed 



Religious Liberty 267 

of ninety members and only twelve of these 
were Roman Catholics, including the three 
Jesuits. 

Consider that Lord Baltimore's toleration was 
forced upon him by his very serious financial 
straits. Such was his poverty that he was de- 
pendent on his father-in-law, Lord Arundel for 
bread for his family. It was imperative that he 
should attract colonists to his languishing colony. x 
Accordingly he offered free lands to the Puritans 
in Massachusetts, and to the non-conformists in 
Virginia, as an inducement to move into Mary- 
land, he offered liberty of conscience. He even 
agreed to make Stone, a non-conformist minister, 
Governor of the Colony (see Founders of Maryland, 
Rev. E. D. Neill, 1876, pp. 100, 102, 108, 117). 
Stone's commission contained a pledge that no 
person professing to believe in Jesus Christ should 
be disturbed in the free exercise of his religion. 
This was in 1648. Thus the religious toleration of 
Lord Baltimore was in conformity with Cardinal 

1 Prof. Alfred P. Dennis, Ph.D., of Smith College writes as 
follows: 

Cecilius Calvert had the foresight to perceive that the colony 
could not be successfully planted without Protestants, but he was 
wise enough to understand that Protestants would not embark 
upon the enterprise unless religious freedom should be guaranteed 
by the proprietary, and that Protestant England, with a Parlia- 
ment of Puritan temper, would not for an instant tolerate the 
erection of a distinctly Roman Catholic government within the 
bounds of her territorial jurisdiction. Toleration of Protestants 
was all of a piece with the opportunist policy of the proprie- 
tary." — "Lord Baltimore's Struggle with the Jesuits." Report 
of American Historical Association, vol. i., pp. 107-24. 



268 Romanism in the Light of History 

Gibbons's principle, that " religious liberty may 
be tolerated by a ruler when it would do more 
harm to the state to repress it!" 

Take further note of the fact that the famous Act 
of Toleration, passed April 21, 1649, by a Legisla- 
ture two-thirds of whom were Protestants, was not 
confirmed by Lord Baltimore until August 26, 
1650. 

Observe yet further that when the Assembly 
met in 1650, the four Roman Catholic members 
objected to the principles of the Act of Toleration, 
as contrary to their religion. The historian says: 
"When the delegates came to be sworn, all the 
Roman Catholics, four in number, objected to the 
principles of the Act concerning Religion. " (See 
Neill, p. 122.) 

I may add that in this "Land of the Sanctuary " 
— this home of religious liberty! — the Pope's 
Bull, "In Coena Domini/ ' was read every year on 
the day of the Lord's Supper, or Maundy Thurs- 
day, with its excommunications and anathemas 
against heretics. Id., p. 101. 

That religious liberty was established in the 
Colony of Maryland by Lord Baltimore must be 
unquestionably denied; for, as already pointed out, 
the denial of the divinity of Christ, or of the doc- 
trine of the Trinity, was punishable with confisca- 
tion and death; and reproachful words concerning 
the Virgin Mary involved the penalty of fine, 
public whipping, and imprisonment. Bancroft 
did indeed express the opinion quoted by Father 



Religious Liberty 269 

Russell 1 ; but that was not his final opinion, for in 
his latest edition, 1888, he omits that statement 
and testifies that Roger Williams "was the first 
person in modern Christendom to establish civil 
government on the doctrine of liberty of con- 
science' ' (p. 255). 

Religious toleration — the toleration of Protes- 
tant opinions — however, was put in practice by 
Lord Baltimore, and for that he deserves high 
praise, especially as the Jesuits in the colony 
positively disapproved of it. But there were two 
things that must qualify our appreciation of the 
course he pursued '.first, his charter required him to 
tolerate the religion of the Church of England, and 
second, the necessities of his colony compelled 
him to do everything in his power to attract 
colonists, both from Virginia and Massachusetts. 

Father Russell in his pamphlet enumerated 
twelve or fifteen instances of intolerance by 
Protestants in the seventeenth century and 
challenged me to deny them, offering to pay $100 
for each case disproved to any charity I might 
designate. 

But why should I deny these statements? If 
I should grant that every one of them was true, 
that would not shake any one of my three con- 
tentions, for I had already admitted that neither 
Protestants nor Roman Catholics understood at 

1 Viz., that Lord Baltimore was the first ruler in the history 
of the Christian world to establish religious liberty as the basis 
of a state. 



270 Romanism in the Light of History 

that time the principle of religious liberty. I 
might have claimed his money, if I could descend 
to such a scheme, on his first proposition, for it 
did not truly represent Bancroft's mature opinion. 
On the other hand, had I followed the Monsignore 
to this low plane of controversy, I might have with 
perfect safety offered to pay $1000 to St. Patrick's 
Church, if he could successfully controvert any 
one of the subjoined statements: 

1. Pope Pius IX. in the famous Syllabus of 
December 8, 1864, condemned the following prop- 
osition, 

" Every man is free to embrace and profess the 
religion he believes true, guided by the light of 
reason. " 

2. The same Pope, at the same time, pro- 
nounced Anathema on the following: 

"It has been wisely provided by law, in some 
countries called Catholic, that persons coming to 
reside therein shall enjoy the public exercise of 
their own worship/ ' 

3. Pope Leo XIII. in his Encyclical on "Human 
Liberty/' June 20, 1888, said: "It is nowise per- 
mitted to demand, defend, or grant liberty of 
thought or of the press, of teaching or of religion. " 

4. Pope Pius X. addressed to the monk Le- 
picier, author of De Stabilitate et Progressu Dog- 
matis, a commendatory letter which says: "By 
this work you have given great gratification to the 
Sovereign Pontiff." Now this book declares, 
p. 194, that public heretics deserve not merely to 



Religious Liberty 271 

be excommunicated but to be killed (sed etiam 
dignos esse qui per mortem e vivis auferantur), — 
that the Church tolerates heretics now because it 
is not prudent to kill them (p. 208-209), — and 
finally that the Pope has the power to depose 
secular rulers who abandon Catholicism, and to 
absolve the subjects of such rulers from their 
allegiance (p. 210). 

Until Monsignor Russell shall disprove these 
four propositions of mine "the conclusion of the 
controversy " remains unmistakably against him. 



INDEX 



Absolution, priestly, 188 

Adrian VI., 203 

American principles, Protes- 
tants should unite in their 
defenses, 20 

Apostles: all given same com- 
mission, 51, 69; all given 
same power, 48 

Apostolic Council, 48, 155 

Aquinas, St. Thomas, on Im- 
maculate Conception, 46, 126 

Armada, the Spanish, 262 

Authority of the Church, 36 

B 

Baltimore, Lord, 259, 267, 269 
Bancroft on religious toleration 

in Maryland, 257, 268 
Bellarmine, 204, 214 
Bibles burned by priests, 176 
Bishop of Edinburgh on union 

with Rome, 26 
Bishop of Rome: why honored 
in early church, 81; neither 
supremacy nor infallibility 
recognized in early centuries, 
71, 71, 79; Fathers silent 
on his being Peter's suc- 
cessor, 84 
Bishops, power of, 39; equality 
of, taught by St. Jerome, 91 ; 
and St. Cyprian, 105; abol- 
ished by Isidorian decrees, 
99, 100 
Bridget, St., on the Pope, 201 
British Church, its early foun- 
dation, 167, 220 



Cardinals differ as to papal 
infallibility, 57, 138 

Chillingworth on private judg- 
ment, 219 

Christian unity as urged by 
Leo XIII., 25-28; difficul- 
ties of accepting same, 45, 

47,55 
Chrysostom on "the Rock," 

47, 59 

Church of Christ: Can it err? 
215; Christ its foundation, 
47; Christ its head, 72, 198 

Church of England, her rebel- 
lion against Roman yoke, 167 

Church of Rome: aggressive- 
ness of, 3; intolerance, 8, 9, 
212; her exclusive claims, 
33,. 36, 37, 4°, 4i; ^r claims 
built on assumptions, 215; 
attitude toward Holy Scrip- 
ture, 117, 169, 175, 176, 186; 
her audacious alterations, 
of Scripture, 108; al- 
leged unity unreal, 145, 
146, 177, 179; her departure 
from primitive faith, 166; 
her teaching contradictory, 

45, 50, 57, 142, 144, 157, 178, 
180, 218, 223; intolerance 
of, 8, 9, 212; an ecclesiastical 
despotism, 179; built on 
the Pope, not Christ, 204; 
a foe to liberty 179, 252, 
266; aims to control ballots 
of her members, 19; dis- 
established in Italy, Spain, 
France, and Portugal, 10, 14; 



273 



274 



Index 



Church of Rome — Continued 
claims to be arbiter of 
nations, ioo, 209; her cor- 
ruption of the Christian 
faith, 221; her internal 
disunity, 177; moral cor- 
ruption of, 198, 201-203, 
230, 232; variations of her 
creed, 221; how it crushes 
efforts at reform, 9, 10; 
internecine strife within, 146; 
growth in United States due 
to immigration, 16; forbids 
investigation,^ 3 5 ; opposition 
to, is political suicide, 19; 
has condemned reading of 
Bible, 158, 175; has added 
new articles to creed, 222; 
her ideal of civil order, 210, 
211 

Clerical Concubinage in Ro- 
man Catholic Church, 201 

Council of Trent, 67, 202 

D 

Danger, confronting American 
people 19; lies in polit- 
ical solidarity of Church of 
Rome, 19 
Dante applies apocalyptic 
prophecy to the Popes, 200 
Despotism of Popes set up, 100 
Doane, Bishop, on Strossmayer 
DoeVs picture of disillusioned 

monk, 227 
Duelling authorized by Popes, 

H2, 157 . . M 

Durandus, descnption of papal 
court, 199 

E 

Encyclical of Leo XIII., on 
Human Liberty, 8, 9; on 
Reunion of Christendom, 25, 

33,43 
Equality of Apostles: taught 
by the Fathers 50; by 
Gregory the Great, 51; by 
Holy Scripture, 69, 74, 80 



Faith and works, 193 
Faith of our Fathers, 140 
Fathers, the, teaching of, not 
unanimous, 50; on equality 
of Bishops, 75; on Peter's 
confession, 64, 66; against 
Roman Supremacy, 87 
First General Councils gave no 
support to Roman claims, 
92 
Free investigation feared by 
Romanists, 234 



Gibbons, Cardinal: on an 
infallible interpreter, 140; 
on Maryland as home of 
religious liberty, 5, 245; 
on religious liberty, 266; 
false claim to Magna Charta, 
141 ; author's open letter to, 
245 seq 

Gieseler on controversy with 
Rome, 88 

Gladstone on religious tolera- 
tion in Maryland, 247, 251 

Greek Church, on the Immacu- 
late Conception, 128; her 
position defined, 32 ; on 
independence of national 
churches, 112 

Gregory IX. claims universal 
dominion, 210 

Gregory the Great, Pope: on 
equality of Bishops, 51; re- 
pudiates title ' ' Universal 
Bishop," 54, 119 

Gunpowder Plot, 262 

H 

Harlot of the Seven Hills 
applied to Roman Church, 
200 

Heretics, how they should be 
treated, 8, 211-213, 271 



Index 



275 



Hildebrand (Gregory VII.), his 
claims over the nations, 100 

History against papal claims, 
53, 70, 134, 148, 158, 160 

Holy Scripture against Roman 
claims, 48-50, 52, 69, 70, 
74, 154; why we receive the 
Scriptures, 220 

Honorius, Pope, excommuni- 
cated as heretic, 56, 92, 134 

Hooker on justification, 193 



Immaculate Conception, 45, 

46, 124, 127, 128 
Important questions, 48, 54, 

85, 203, 246 
Independence of national 

churches, 112 
Indulgences, still granted, 9; 

sold before Reformation, 202 

sold by a fixed tariff, 205; 

promised to insurrectionists 

by Martin IV., 212 
Infidelity by reaction from 

Romanism, 13, 225, 22^, 239 
Inquisition, dark history of, 

213; defended, 9 
Internecine strife in Roman 

Church, 146 
Irenaeus, alleged support of 

Roman claims, 102 
Isidorian decretals, 32, 98, 99, 

114, 171, 186; used to 

destroy equality of Bishops, 

99, 100 



Jerome, St., on Roman Suprem- 
acy, 90, 91 
Jerusalem Council, 48, 155 
Jewish Church erred, 215 

K 

Kenrick, Archbishop, on pri- 
macy of Peter, 65; on keys 
of the Kingdom, 76 



Leo X., Pope, uses indulgences 
to replenish treasury, 202 

Leo XIII., his encyclical on 
Reunion of Christendom, 25, 
33, 43 ; open letter of author 
to, 43 seq 

Letters to His Holiness, Pius X., 

7, 10 

Liguori, St. Alphonsus, sanc- 
tions equivocation, 199 

Liberius, Pope, denied divinity 
of Christ, 56, 133 

Linus, first Bishop of Rome, 71, 
104, 158 

Losses of Church of Rome, 
13-18 

M 

Magna Charta: falsely claimed 
by Cardinal Gibbons, 141; 
condemned by Pope Inno- 
cent III., 141, 179 

Man of Sin, 214 

Manning, Cardinal, on Papal 
Infallibility, 57, 139 

Maryland, Colony who founded 
religious liberty there? 265; 
majority of colonists Pro- 
testants, 246, 254 

Maximizers and minimizers, 

143 
Mediaeval spirit, 18 
Mediaeval sacerdotalism and 

its peril, 19 
Modernism crushed by Rome, 

8, 14, 253 

Morality, comparative in Ro- 
man Catholic and Protestant 
countries, 230 

Mosheim on supremacy of 
Roman Bishop, 88 

N 

National subjection to Rome 
taught, 33, 100, 209, 210 



276 



Index 






Newman Cardinal, on Papal, 

Infallibility, 132, 138 
Notes, 230 



Papacy: its development, 97; 
foe to liberty, 179; pre- 
liminary propositions neces- 
sary to, 68, 69 

Papal Infallibility: disastrous 
result of dogma, 10; opposed 
by many Roman prelates, 
129, 136; disproved by facts 
of history, 56, 132, 218; 
promulgation of, 55 ; the de- 
cree, 129, 130; Lord Acton 
on, 135; uncertainty of, 138, 
182; diverse views of, 137, 
224; an ignis fatnas, 137; it 
leads to infidelity, 225 

Patriarch of Constantinople 
on Roman claims, 71 

Penance, 188, 189 

Peter: not "the Rock," 47, 
59, 62, 66, 67, 152, 174; 
keys of Kingdom given to* 
41, 49, 76, 79; his confession 
of faith, the Church's founda- 
tion, 64, 66; claims for, 37- 
41; claims disproved, 47-54; 
never acted as Pope, 48, 156; 
rebuked by Paul, 48 

Pius IV., Pope, his creed 50, 
53, 169 ; added twelve articles 
to creed, 222 

Pius X., Pope, illiberal views 

Political activity of Roman 

priests, 19 
Pope: called Vice -God, 204, 

214; when does he speak ex 

cathedra? 138, 224 
Popes: not infallible, 56, 132- 

143; deposed by Church, 56, 

134; guilty of heresy, 133; 

disagree as to baptism, 

marriage, and duelling, 142; 

foes of religious liberty, 252, 



266; why universal jurisdic- 
tion not now exercised by, 
211 

Popes and Council of Trent: 
disagree on salvation of 
infants, 141; on power over 
Purgatory, 189 

Predestination, controversy on, 

177 

Present outlook for Romanism 
3 seq 

Primacy of Bishop of Rome: 
anciently conceded, 81; de- 
crees of Councils on, 82 

Private judgment, 138, 175, 
180, 219 

Protestantism: its principles, 
163 ; does it lead to infidelity? 
185, 207, 224; its funda- 
mental principles, 161 ; mean- 
ing of "Protestant," 165; 
charges against, similar to 
those against primitive Chris- 
tian Church, 207; not a 
negative system, 164; not 
destruction of society, 208, 
209, 213; compares favor- 
ably with Romanism in 
moral influence, 229 

Pucci on corruption in the 
Church, 202 



Reformation in England: was 
breaking of a foreign yoke, 
168; results attributed to, 

195 

Religious liberty: not in 
Maryland Toleration Act, 
245; Gladstone on, 247, 251; 
not understood in seven- 
teenth century, 258, 263, 
269; Romanists cannot ac- 
cept it, 252; nowhere found 
in Roman Catholic countries 
249, 264, 266 

Roman Catholic citizens, an 
appeal to, 21 



Index 



277 



Roman hierarchy: ambitious 
for political power, 19; In- 
trigue among, 145 

Roman teaching contradictory, 

45, 50, 57, 142, 144, 157, 178, 
180, 218, 223 
Romanism: its purpose to 
"make America Catholic, 

3, 11; its doctrines un- 
changed except by additions, 

4, 6-12, 27; its ambitious 
aims not surrendered, 4, 6- 
12, 27; proscribes liberty of 
thought and press, 7, 14; de- 
nounces liberty of conscience, 
8, 14; a foe to liberty, 179, 
252, 266; present outlook 
for, 3 

Rule of Faith and its Inter- 
preter, 163, 170, 176 

Russell, Monsignore: a re- 
joinder, 253; a further reply, 
262. 



Sectarianism: in apostolic and 

sub-apostolic times, 196, 206 

Seven Churches of Asia erred, 

215 

Strossmayer, Bishop, speech 
attributed to him, 6, 150 

Syllabus of Pius IX., 7, 13, 57, 
158 



Temporal power of Pope, 135, 
262 

Tradition : Christ's attitude 
toward, 172; uncertainty of, 
171; made superior to scrip- 



ture, 115, 169, 170; Pharisa- 
ism, 172; Christ and, 172 
Trent, Council of, 67, 202 
Transubstantiation contrary to 
reason, 235 

U 

Ultramontanes, 146 
Union with Rome, 26; difficul- 
ties in the way, 45, 47, 54, 

55 

Unity: not perfect in early 
Church, 196, 206; in Roman 
Church, external only, 145, 
179, 187 ; only in appearance, 
146 

Universal dominion claimed by 
Popes, 210 

V 

Vatican Council, 15, 64, 129, 

136, 179 
Vicar of Christ, 37, 48, 113, 

204 
Vicious circle argument, 220 
Vigilius, Pope, excommuni- 
cated, 94 
Virgin Mary worshipped, 143 
Voltaire, history of his un- 
belief, 226 

W 

Western Watchman defends per- 
secution, 9 

Williams, Roger, founder of 
religious liberty in Amer- 
ica, 269 

Wiseman, Cardinal, confesses 
Roman doctrines unscrip- 
tural, 116 



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